


Marked

by hollowanchors



Category: Supernatural
Genre: F/M, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-05-26
Updated: 2014-07-11
Packaged: 2018-01-26 16:38:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 26,976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1695197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hollowanchors/pseuds/hollowanchors
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a world where everyone is born with a tattoo that matches their soul-mate's, Dean Winchester was born without one.  He's always pretended like it didn't bother him, he was a grown man for heaven's sake, but it does.  The thought festers at the back of his mind constantly--he doesn't have a soul-mate.  </p><p>In his freshman year of college though, he finds himself falling for his roommate, the stunning, eccentric, thoughtful Castiel Collins.  And Castiel, with the detailed pair of wings that decorate his back, doesn't seem to care much for the idea of soul-mates anyways.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. I

 

Dean Winchester. Nineteen .  Freshman  year of college.  Born without a tattoo.

He put up his best front.  Acted like, in a world where everyone was born with a tattoo that matched their soul-mate's, not having one wasn't a big deal.  He was over it.  He wasn't going to whine about it.  He was a grown man for heaven's sake. 

But it did bother him.  Every time he saw his parent's tattoos, a circle of flames wrapping around their right wrists.  Every time he went swimming with Sammy and was exposed to the elaborate, colorful tiger that encompassed his brother's back.  Every time there was a headline on one of those stupid gossip rags at the supermarket that gushed about a celebrity finding their soul-mate, accompanied by a picture of the happy couple.  It  _bothered_   Dean.

Although people usually weren't shy about parading their tattoos, especially once they'd found their soul-mate, many people weren't very showy about it.  A lot of them didn't see a point in shoving it in everyone's face when they,  however ignorantly, assumed that everyone had one.  It would be like showing off their thumb.  But because of people like this Dean was able to keep the fact that he was soul-mate-less under wraps, only his family knew.  So whenever someone else asked about his, he shrugged,  they assumed that he was among those who didn't see much of a reason to be prideful about it, and Dean thanked the universe for small mercies.

He toed the door to 32B, his assigned dorm room, open and slid inside for the first time.  It was alright, by all standards.  He hadn't been expecting much anyways.  White walls,  three rooms--a kitchen, a bathroom, and a bedroom with two bunk beds, and the slight scent of alcohol.  

He tossed his duffel bag on the bunk to his left, the other one already claimed by two cardboard boxes.   The lack of a soul-mate hadn't stopped Dean from participating in various flings in high school, though, and it certainly wasn't going to stop him here.  And hopefully neither was his roommate--he squinted at the black scribbles on the boxes-- _ Castiel _ ?  Weird name.  Maybe it was a joke.

He didn't have long to think about who would curse their son with a name like  Castiel  for long, though.  The front door of the dorm screamed on their hinges and when Dean turned around he was met by the bluest pair of eyes he had ever seen in his life.


	2. II

 

The first month passes  without any particularly exciting events.  Dean goes to this classes and he comes home.  Sometimes, when  Cas  isn't burying himself beneath textbooks and notes with his glasses crooked on his nose (why  he feels the need to study this early in the semester, Dean cannot fathom), they watch (in Dean's opinion, not-so) dumb soap operas with their dinners on their laps.  Once, when  Cas  was visiting his brother, Dean brought a girl from his creative writing class home.  Kali was a firecracker in the bed and out of it but it was only a one time thing.

All the while, Dean pretends that he doesn't sneak glances out of the corners of his eyes when  Castiel  is changing.  Pretends that he isn't salivating over the way his back muscles move like liquid under the pair of wings that cover his back and shoulders and wrap around his arms and disappear beneath the waistband of his pants.  He pretends like he doesn't remember exactly how his roommate takes his coffee even though the boy prefers green tea.  He pretends like he doesn't love the deep, gravelly tone of  Castiel's  voice.  Because it's stupid to do something like that.  You can't have one night stands with your roommate.  And that's all it ever could be because Dean Winchester doesn't have a soul-mate and  Castiel  does, the intricate black wings that adorn his back are testament to that.

It's not just that Dean wants to get  Castiel  and all of his beautifully toned muscles from those weird, two AM runs into his bed.  Dean's quite familiar with that feeling.  But this one, not so much.  This is new.  This is suffocating.  This is uncomfortable.  This is nerve-racking.  He wants to close the three inches that separate their hands when they watch television.  He wants to massage the tension out of  Cas's  shoulders.  He wants to make  Cas  paper-bag lunches with silly notes tucked between the sandwich and those peanut butter crackers that he's so fond of.  He wants to make  Cas  smile.  He wants to sleep with him -- not even have sex, just  _ sleep _ .  He wants to talk with him and find out more those weird, little things (like how  Cas  has read  _Paradise Lost_   seventeen times even though it has nothing to do with his major or how he hates baths).

And this is all so not  Dean.   Dean is engine oil, greasy burgers, and too-salty fries.  Dean is careless and messy and fuck-' em -once-and-leave-' em .  He's not supposed to care about someone like this.  He's not allowed to.  He's allowed to have friends and family.  Nothing more.  If he was supposed to fall in love he would have been born with some ink.

What he should be doing is running.  Like he ran from Lisa Braeden in junior year, with her sweet scent and blossoming, cherry tree tattoo.  She was supposed to be just another fling but he found himself relishing the sound of her voice and missing her touch when she wasn't around.  So he got the hell out of dodge.  He wasn't allowed to get emotionally involved.  He should be running but what he's doing is scrambling eggs the way  Cas  likes them (even though the only self-respecting way to eat eggs is over-easy).

"Can you grab some plates?  Eggs are almost done."  His voice comes out scratchy and dry after sleeping for so long.

Cas  stretches up to grab two plates off of the top shelf.  Unable to stop himself, Dean's eyes slide to the sliver of tanned skin revealed but he can see the detailed edges of several feathers as well.  He turns away.

"You okay?"  Cas  asks, setting the plates down next to the stove.

"Yeah, why?"

"You just look a little sick."

"Oh.  I guess I drank a couple more beers that I should have when I was at Benny's last night.  At least it's Saturday, huh?"

Cas  groaned softly.  He had already expressed his dislike for any kind of drinking while in school during their first week here.  Who was he to be telling Dean what to do though? They'd only just met!  What Dean hasn't told him was that he hasn't had a single drink, not even a little taste, since  Cas  had said that.

"Yes.  At least it's Saturday."

"Classes rough?" Dean asked as he scooped the eggs onto their plates.

Cas  grimaced.  "Yes.  Already.  I don't even know what I was thinking, I'm going to have  years  of this."

"You were thinking that you wanted to help people," Dean replied, quoting  Cas  from one of their first conversations.  At that time their conversations had been nothing short of awkward.  More like friendly interrogations because 'we're going to be living together so we may was well get to know each other.'

"Don't remind me, it makes it all worth it,"  Cas  mumbled around a mouthful of egg.  "I don't want to talk about school though, it's Saturday--no classes."

Silence ensued for several seconds before Dean realized that  Cas  wanted him to come up with something.  "I've got nothing buddy, this one's on you."

"What's your tattoo?"  Cas  asked after a moment.  Dean choked on his eggs.

"Oh, my apologies," he sputtered, slapping Dean on the back a few times.  "I didn't realize that this was off-limits.  You're so open about everything else.  But I know some people that don't like sharing that with the general public.  My Aunt Hester  _never_    showed hers to anyone. Not even after she was married.  I suppose it took a near miracle to find Uriel.  They're polar opposites, you wouldn't believe.  But they work.  Very well, in fact.  I don't even think that my mother saw her tattoo and they grew up together!  How she managed that....  My cousin, Ruby, on the other hand, she--"

" Cas , I don't have one."

The words were out of his mouth before he even realized it.  

Cas  stopped and Dean froze.  Shit.  He doesn't just tell people that.  He doesn't just  _ tell people  ** that ** _ .  Only Mom, Dad, and Sam know and that's only because they're family.  Close family.  Not even Aunt Ellen or Uncle Bobby know.  He'd never even told Jo and they were practically best friends since birth.

"What?"

Oh well, it was out now.  Deed was done.

"I don't have a tattoo,  Cas .  I don't have a soul-mate."

"I apologize.  I didn't realize that--I mean, I knew that some people are born without one.  A very small percentage.  Some where about 0.1%.  I don't know the actual number.  I could look  it up , I suppose.  You can look up anything these days.  It doesn't, I mean, I don't make you uncomfortable, do I?  If I do, I mean--I didn't realize, obviously, I could chance in the bathroom or elsewhere if you wish.  I didn't mean to be so... showy , for lack of a better word, about mine."

" Cas , stop, it's alright," Dean interrupted his roommate's rambling.   Cas  was usually a man of few words but when he was nervous or uncomfortable, the words wouldn't stop coming.  Sometimes they didn't even make sense.  Once  Cas  started going off on Dean in Italian.  It was  kinda  endearing, though.  "It doesn't bother me.  I'm used to it.  I haven't had a tattoo my whole life."

"Well, in that case, do you enjoy running?"

Dean suppressed a chuckle and an eye roll at that.  Though he had to be thankful for the change of topic, he couldn't not laugh at his roommate's lack of finesse at manipulating the conversation.  "No,  Cas , for the last time, I will not go running with you in the middle of the freaking night."

Cas  raised his eyebrows and inclined his head slightly towards Dean.  "C'mon, it's fun."

"My current exercise schedule for the foreseeable future includes moving from the bed to the fridge and back again."

"Dean, you will die if you don't exercise."

"Will not."

"If you keep eating heart-attacks between buns, you will."

"Not going,  Cas ."

Cas  frowned and a creased formed between his big, blue eyes as he whined, " _ Deeeeeaan _ ."


	3. III

 

"Morning Sleeping Beauty," Dean smirked when  Cas  emerged from his cocoon of tangled blankets and sheets at noon on Saturday.   Cas  narrowed his eyes slightly but, instead of dignifying Dean's comment with a response, he shuffled in the direction of the second-hand coffee-maker shoved in the corner of the kitchen.

It had been two weeks since Dean had, however accidentally, revealed that he had been born inkless.  The first few days,  Cas  had made sure to avoid displaying his tattoo--he changed facing Dean, he wore sleeves that reached, at the very least, his elbows, he only showered when Dean was sleeping.  But, after having to deal with the bad mood that this put Dean into, he stopped.  Dean couldn't handle it when things changed, even slightly, after he shared a secret.  Like the way his father had looked at him differently for three weeks when he was in the fifth grade and had let slip that he liked a boy named Aaron.  Or how Sam had insisted on helping him study for chemistry after he told his brother he got a D on the semester final.  (It wasn't his fault, okay?  Chemistry was hard and the teacher sucked.)  After  Cas  realized how uncomfortable this made Dean, though, he quickly reverted back to his old habits.  He changed with this back on full display, he wore fitted, short-sleeved t-shirts that let the feathers that reached down to his elbows peek out, he sauntered back into the dorm with a towel around his waist and water dripping from his hair.   For a guy that missed out on a lot of social cues, Dean had to admit that he was pretty quick to pick up on certain things.

"Did you sleep well, Dean?"  Cas  asked, as he turned around with a steaming mug of coffee wrapped between his hands.

He nodded.

"It didn't sound like it."   Cas  stated bluntly.

Dean could feel his cheeks heating slightly, which only served to make him more embarrassed.  So maybe it took him a little tossing and turning and a few hours to pass  ut  but he slept well once he got there.  "Sorry to keep you up man."

Cas  shook his head.  "No need to be sorry."

"Hey, so Benny and a couple of his friends were going camping tonight and he was wondering if we wanted to go.  You down?"  He asked just as  Cas  opened his mouth to continue.

_ Smooth, Winchester _ , Dean thought when  Cas  raised his eyebrows at him.  He had to admit though, even by his standards, it was a pretty obvious, pretty rushed topic change but he wasn't prepared to answer his roommate if he asked what Dean was thinking about last night.  It would only drag up the tattoo and soul-mate conversation again and things were going good right now, so why mess with it?   Cas  didn't need to know that he was worried that he would, inevitably, spend the rest of his days as a bachelor.  The guy was his roommate, not his therapist.

"He asked if  _I_   wanted to come?"

"Yeah."  Well, no.  But  Cas  didn't need to know that either.  Plus, Benny said it was just one of those things were people show up.  Really casual.  No invites needed.  They're in college for heaven's sake, not Hollywood.

"Okay."

"Really?"

"Yeah, why not?  There's more to college than just the classes."

Dean found himself smiling.  "Yeah."

 

…

 

"There's no way in the world that there is anyone all the way out here, Dean,"  Cas  said from the passenger seat of the car, looking down the check his  phone again.  "We don't even have cell service anymore.  We're lost."

"We're not lost,  Cas ," he said, relaxing back in his seat a little bit.   Okay, they  might  be lost.  Dean had to admit it, they had been driving on the same dirt road for the past forty minutes.  They had passed a total of seventeen cows, almost hit two of them in the dark, and had passed a total of zero other human beings.  "Benny said it was a straight shot off the highway until a right turn at the big oak tree."

"Those are kind of vague directions,"  Cas  muttered before raising his voice.  "Plus, we passed an oak seven miles ago."

"But that wasn't a  big  oak."

"We're lost.  Admit it."

"Not lost."   _ Maybe _ lost.  But, would it really be that awful if they never found the campsite and the two of them had to camp out in the back of the Impala?  Probably not.

Cas  rolled his eyes and muttered, "Lost," again as Dean reached over to turn the music up slightly.  

…..

 

As it turned out, Dean was right (which he didn't let go without a smirk or  five ).  Three miles later they reached an oak tree that was without a doubt  the one that Benny was talking about.

"That has to be taller than the Empire State Building," Dean had muttered when he made the turn.

"Doubtful.  The Empire State Building is one thousand two hundred fifty feet tall."   Cas  replied, leaning forward to look at the col ossal  tree through the windshield.

"Dude, how?"

"What?"

"Why on earth do you know that?"

"I got bored when I was in the seventh grade and memorized the height of the tallest buildings in the world."

Dean could think of several logical questions to ask at this point, such as  ' _Why would you look up the size of the tallest buildings in the world if you were bored_?'  or  ' _Why do you remember that? It was like six years ago_.'  but figured that his best option at this point was to accept this as normal and let it drop.  

After the right turn it wasn't more than two minutes until they rounded one last bend into the campsite that was already full of people gathered around a monumental bonfire in the center of a circle of cars.  Even from where Dean parked the Impala (out of the way enough that any drunk idiots wouldn't hurt her) he could see several bottles of alcohol and smell the pungent scent of marijuana.  

"I don't think that's completely legal, Dean."

"That's why we're all the way out here in the middle of nowhere.  If anyone bothered calling the cops, which they won't because we're the only ones out here, they'll get half way here before deciding that either a) they're lost or b) somebody's screwing with them because absolutely nobody in their right mind would come all the way out here just to drink a little bit."

Cas  still didn't look reassured though.

"Hey man, if you want to leave, we can."   Cas  opened his mouth but hesitated.  "Don't worry about it, we can grab some burgers from Wendy's and watch Pulp Fiction or something."

If Dean was being completely honest, he would actually prefer kicking back and watching a movie with  Cas  to getting a little tipsy out in the middle of the woods but his roommate  shook his head.  "No, I'm good."

Dean didn't have a chance to ask if he was sure because just then Benny yanked the door to the Impala open and pulled Dean into a suffocating hug .  "Dean!  You made it!"

"Yeah man," he chuckled, attempting to wriggle himself free.  

"And  Castiel  came!" He dropped Dean (who sucked in a lungful of air) and slid over the hood of his car to pull  Cas  into an equally bone-crushing hug.  "Nice to meet you man!  Now, c'mon, I've got a bottle of Jack Daniels and  a couple of joints saved for you guys!"

 

….

 

Dean couldn't deny that  Castiel  was looking particularly attractive tonight.  He had borrowed an old, faded AC/DC shirt from Dean because all the poor guy owned was button ups and crisp, white t-shirts and neither of those were very acceptable for camping out in the woods.  But Dean was sure that his pants were extra fitted tonight and that, on top of his disheveled hair and bright, blue eyes shining behind his ridiculously large glasses, was more than just a little bit distracting.  That was why Dean was avoiding getting too wasted tonight as opposed to  Cas , who, despite not touching a single drop of alcohol, was completely stoned within ten minutes of arriving.  He had finished two joints all by himself in the time that it had taken Dean and Benny to share one.  Even Ash, who Dean had met a few times and always seemed to have one or two half-smoked joints on him at all times, was impressed.

After that,  Cas  had slowed down a little bit but Dean didn't see him without a joint between his fingers for the rest of the night.  

By one in the morning the campsite had settled down a little bit.  Most of the people were already passed out in the beds of trucks or on the ground, if they were too drunk to make it to somewhere more comfortable.  The few that hadn't turned in already were around the dwindling fire, exchanging stories and jokes that weren't necessarily all that funny but sent most of them into almost uncontrollable  fits of laughter.  Dean, on the other hand, was finding it difficult to see anything particularly humorous at the moment as  Castiel , whose eyes were watering as he laughed, was leaning into  a blonde man that was all sharp edges and baby blue eyes.  He had practically been gravitating around this guy for the past hour and as much as Dean hated admitting it he might be a little bit jealous.  Alright, he was jealous.  For sure.  Very jealous.  He knew he had no right to be, it wasn' t like he had some sort of claim on  Cas .  They were roommates.  That's all.  And Dean wasn't about to screw up perfectly good living conditions because he fantasized about big blue eyes, unruly, dark hair,  and chapped lips sometimes.   Cas  had every right to be hanging on the shoulder of this stranger with his lips a little bit too close to the other guy's jaw for Dean's comfort.

"Hey brother--" Benny started, startling Dean into spilling some of his fifth beer.  

"Shit, sorry.  You scared me."

"I didn't mean to, I guess you were just a little bit preoccupied with  Balth  and  Cas  over there, eh?"  Benny smirked, his eyes flickering across the campfire.

Dean snorted but didn't bother denying it.  Benny wasn't one to judge.  "His name's  Balth ?  What kind of name is that?"

"Short for Balthazar.  Even that is a little eccentric if you ask me," he replied.  "I would've been happy to have given his parents a couple of ideas if they'd asked me but I suppose it's too late now."

This is what he got for going to a fine arts college to get his major.  Fucking hippies.

"But anyways, I just wanted to let you know that I was going to crash in the tent to make sure that no idiots choke on their own puke so the back of my truck is open for you and  Cas  to crash in.  The back of your car doesn't look like it would be all that comfortable for the both of you."

Dean's automatic response was to throw back something about how his Baby would work perfectly fine, thank you very much.  She worked for everything.  But, on second thought, he hadn't really thought the whole camping thing all the way through and the back of Benny's truck would be preferable to the ground and a thin sleeping bag.  

"Thanks man.  I think that I'll finish this one up and then I'll go crash," he replied, lifting his beer up slightly.

"How many is that?"

"Five."

Benny scoffed in what was definitely an unbelieving manner but Dean was a little bit too tired to defend himself.  "As long as you don’t throw up on the blankets back there.  I  kinda  like them."

"Don't worry about it man, I won't."

Benny clapped him on the back before heading over to the edge of the campsite where a little red tent sat.  Everyone that had drank too much was forced to sleep in it so that they wouldn't throw up in the back of somebody's car.

Dean took his time finishing the rest of beer, all while glaring at Balthazar over the lip of the bottle (which, unfortunately, went unnoticed by the blonde prick).  Two in the morning found him in the back of Benny's truck surrounded by a sea of plaid blankets and faded pillowcases, wide awake.  Three in the morning found  Cas  crawling into the back of the truck, still completely clothed but with a contented look on his face.  Whether it was from all the weed or something else, Dean didn't really want to know.

"Dean?"  Cas  asked, his voice deeper than normal.  Dean's mouth went a little dry, but nobody had to know that.

" Hm ?"

A warm hand slid into his and squeezed.  "Thanks for bringing me with you.  I had a good time."

Dean couldn't help the smile that pulled back at the corner of his lips as he squeezed back .  "No problem  Cas , I'm glad you had fun."  


	4. IV

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys, so this is really more of a filler chapter but I promise that big things are going to start happening next chapter!!

 

Dean woke up with a foul taste contaminating his mouth,  the urge to puke  his guts out despite the fact that he didn't get completely wasted last night, and his fingers still wrapped up in  Castiel's  hand.  It would almost be too easy to stay where he was and ignore his stomach's unreasonable need to empty its contents.  Hell, it would almost be just as easy to roll over a little bit and pretend like it was a complete accident that he and  Cas  happened to wake up cuddling.  But Dean was a mature adult who was going to make mature adult decisions and stick with his mature adult commitments which meant not acting on his attraction to his roommate and getting out of bed  before  Cas  wakes up holding hands with him.

As carefully as he c ould , Dean untangle d  himself from the absurd amounts of sheets that Benny had piled in the back of his truck and slip ped  his hand out of  Cas's  before leaping out of the bed of the truck.  The crisp morning air hits Dean the same moment that his feet hit  the ground but he can't say that the sensation is unpleasant after spending the night next to one of the warmest human beings he'd ever met.  He probably could have foregone all of the blankets and still been fine using  Cas  as a space heater.

"Couldn't sleep?" A sultry voice came from  his left .   Perched on a thick log, leaning back against the trunk of another tree was an unfami liar girl with a pale, round face, big brown eyes, and brunette hair that was a few shades lighter than  Cas's ; all wrapped up in a leather jacket with a cigarette burning between her fingers. She was attractive, Dean had to admit.  

"No.  What time is it?"

"Six."

He sighed and rubbed his eyes.  He couldn't have slept for more than three hours but there was no way that he was falling back asleep now.  

"Meg."

"What?"

"My name's Meg, what's yours?"

"Winchester.  Dean."

"Nice to meet you Winchester Dean," a smirk played at the corners of Meg's lips as she took a drag.  He scowled down at her.

"Is there any alcohol left?"

" Woah , slow down there," she said, the smoke escaping her lips with each word.  "Isn't a little bit early to be drinking?"

The image of  Cas  crawling into the truck last night blissed out and smelling very much like expensive cologne that a certain pompous, blonde would wear made it's way to the forefront of Dean's mind and his stomach twisted in a very unpleasant way.  "No."

"Suit yourself.  I think there's a little bit of whiskey over by where the campfire was."

"Thanks," he muttered, shuffling over to the half-empty bottle of Jack Daniels and downing a significant amount in one drink.  Why was he having so much trouble keeping his mind off  Cas ?  He took another drink, smaller this time, savoring the burn as it rushed down his throat.  It wasn't like the college wasn't brimming with more than enough attractive women and men.  He had a lot to choose from.  Another drink.  There was that red-haired Anna girl in his math class .  She seemed friendly enough.  And there was Lydia in his writing class, with all her strawberry blonde hair and domineering personality.  And that  Bela  Talbot that he met one time  at the bar down the road from their campus  who seemed like more trouble than she was worth but said she was looking for a little bit of fun anytime he was up for it.   H e would even go for Victor  Hendrikson  if the guy was down for it .  Another drink--nearing the end of the bottle.

"Bad night?"   She asked, interrupting his thoughts.

"No."

She laughed in a cold, humorless way that was only borderline creepy.  Hell, while he was thinking about it, Meg wasn't all that bad herself.

"You have a bad night?"

"What makes you say that?"

They both pause--Dean to take a drink and Meg to take a drag.

"You're up at six in the morning when everybody else is still passed out drunk."

"You're up at six too."

"Insomnia."  He lied without skipping a beat.

"Bad sex."

"Really?"

"Yeah, he had no idea what he was doing.  So just a heads up, don't crawl between the sheets with Frank."

"Wasn't planning on it," Dean replied, sitting down next to Meg and almost missing the log completely.  "My standards aren't that low."

Only after he said it did he realize that that was the kind of thing that got guys like him slapped but when he chanced a glance over to Meg she was smiling, all teeth and rosy cheeks.  Yeah, she was definitely cute.  Why not?

"That was a good one, I have to admit," she laughed.

Dean took one last swig--polishing off the bottle as his stomach twisted .  "You know, if you want to forget all about Frank, I would love to--"

She cut him off with short laugh.  "You're good looking Winchester Dean, but I'm going to have to say no."

He frowned and heard himself talking before he realized that he had said anything .  "Why not?"

"Because you're going to vomit within the next hour and I've always found that to be a bit of a mood-killer."

"Am not." He scoffed.

"You rolled out of that truck looking like you were going to puke and that was before you finished half a bottle of Jack in four minutes.   Y ou might have a high alcohol tolerance but I'm not willing to chance that.  I'll keep my memories of can't-find-the-right-hole-Frank fresh in my mind."

Dean pouted and Meg arched an eyebrow.

"Trust me, I'd like to.  Someday when you're not on the road to being drunk and puking on yourself, give me a call.  The things you could do with those lips... " Meg purred, taking a drag and softly blowing the smoke into his face.  "I doubt imagination does you any justice."

"I guarantee that it doesn't," he hummed back, leaning in a little bit closer, his eyes darting from her brown eyes to her lipstick-stained lips.

"Well, I suppose it wouldn't hurt to have a little taste then, would it?"  She asked and, before Dean even registered movement, her lips were on his and the stale taste of cigarettes that he never smoked invaded his mouth.  He leaned into it a little more, finding himself enjoying it more than he anticipated.  She was pretty good, it was a shame she'd crawled off with can't-find-the-right-hole-Frank last night instead of him. 

They didn't make it too far pass kissing though.  It couldn't have been more than thirty seconds before a shirtless, skinny boy with a mop of dirty blonde hair tossed himself out of the red tent and started throwing up.

"See what I was saying?  It really ruins the mood."

"I can't say I disagree."

When he turned back to Meg, she was smiling.  "And I can't deny that you're good looking and a  _ pretty  _ good kisser, so if you're ever looking for a little distraction I'm always up for a little fun."

"Pretty good?  I only merit a  _ pretty good _ ?"

She laughed.  "Maybe your morning breath was masking your true abilities."

He rolled his eyes and went to take another drink of the whiskey before realizing it was empty.  

"Have one."  Meg said, holding out a carton of cigarettes, upon noticing his lack of  liquor .  

He frowned but took one from the box.  He'd never really cared for smoking--reminded him too much of the house fire that had killed Mom when he was a kid--but he didn't have anything else to take his mind off of  Cas  for the rest of the morning.  

 

….

 

"I refuse."

"Too bad, I'm driving."

"No."  Dean clutched the keys to the Impala to his chest.

"If you wanted to drive you shouldn't have got up this morning and drank half a bottle of Jack Daniels.  Let me have the keys before you get behind the wheel and wreck your car."

He scowled theatrically and muttered under his breath.  "No, if I wanted to drive I shouldn't have been stupid enough to let you see me with the empty bottle."

"I would have smelled it on you anyways,"  Cas  replied, still holding his hand out for the keys.

"Fine," Dean huffed and slammed the keys into his roommate's palm.  "If you wreck my car, I'll wreck you though."

"I'm absolutely terrified.   Shaking in my boots.  The whole bit."

"Yeah, yeah," Dean muttered, sliding into the passenger seat for the first time in years.  The last time that he sat anywhere that wasn't the driver's seat was when he was sixteen.  John, despite being drunk off his ass, had insisted on driving and wouldn't take no for an answer.  Dean was tired and Sam was practically falling asleep on his feet so neither one of them were up for much of a fight and had slid into the back seat without so much as a word.  Dean should have known better, but he didn't feel like arguing that night and didn't see how much harm it would cause for John to drive a few miles from the bar to the hotel.  He'd driven further when he was drunk.  Dean didn't remember much more about the car ride, dozing off in the back seat next to Sammy, until the world had exploded; shattered glass flew through the air and the harsh sound of colliding metals assaulted his ears and left them ringing for hours.  He never found out if John was too out of it to even see the red light or if he just disregarded it as another law he didn't seem fit to follow but either way he'd raced through the intersection just in time for a semi-truck to plow into the passenger side of the car.  The doctors said that it was a miracle that nobody was seriously injured but Dean didn't think he would have minded if his old man had kicked the bucket that night.  Since then he didn't let anyone else drive the Impala except him.  He probably would have let Sam behind the wheel if the kid asked--he probably would have handed his baby brother the entire world if he wanted it, he had a pair of puppy dog eyes that nobody could refuse--but Sam never wanted to drive the Impala.

"So, are you going to see Balthazar again?" Dean wanted to slap himself as soon as the words were out of his mouth.  Between him being caught up in his memories and  Cas's  aptitude for silence the car was so quiet it was stifling.  So Dean spit out the first thing he thought of and ran with it.

But it was probably too soon to be asking about that.  Roommates didn't really care about each other's personal live and who they were friends with and who they decided to date, did they?  Not unless it was affecting them but so far, to the extent of  Cas's  knowledge, Balthazar wasn't affecting Dean at all.  He wasn't staying late at the room, being unnecessarily loud.  He wasn't pulling annoying pranks left and right.  He wasn't burning food in the microwave or throwing up in the kitchen sink every Saturday.  So, really, there was no logical need for Dean to be asking, was there?

Maybe  Cas  would pass it off as casual conversation.  Friends could ask that kind of stuff without coming off as jealous, right?

"Of course, he's my soul-mate."

Dean nearly choked on his own saliva.  "What? Seriously?"

Cas  glanced over at him, everything about him screaming ' _ dead serious _ ', before he burst out in laughter.  By the time he recovered, his eyes were watering.  "No way.  That would be terrible.  I mean, don't get me wrong, he was alright by all standards but I didn't really like how he kissed.  It wasn't working for me.  Plus, I don't usually like to revisit somewhere I've already been."

"Ah."

The car was silent for a moment.  "Dean, are you alright?"

"Yeah, I'm fine."

 

…..

 

"It's a big, life-ruining crush, Benny," Dean whined, splayed out on the top bunk.

"You're so dramatic," Charlie laughed from where she was perched on the bottom mattress next to Benny.  "I shouldn't have been so surprised that you're gay."

"Says you," he said, reaching down to ruffle her hair.  "Plus, I'm not completely gay."

"Yeah, yeah."  

Charlie, with her flaming red hair and undying love for all things from Star Wars to Harry Potter, practically made her the perfect woman.  She was also completely unattainable as she was gayer than John Elton and Benny's little sister.  He had met her a week or two after school had started and they had hit it off immediately--if there was a way that Dean could adopt Charlie into his own family he would.  She was like the little sister that he never realized he wanted.  And she was so much cooler than Sam.

"She's right though, brother, I think that 'life-ruining' is a little dramatic," Benny said, his eyes glued to the television screen and his fingers furiously flying over a video game controller.

"No, Benny, it really is life-ruining," Dean replied.  "I have to life with the guy and all I can think about is--"

"Stop!" Charlie practically yelled.  "I don't want to hear it.  We get it--you have to live with baby blues over there and all you want to do is get him into your bed."

_ I want to do more than that _ , Dean thought, scowling at the ceiling.  He wanted to make  Cas  his favorite breakfast and go on trips and take showers with him and kiss him and go out to dinner with him and watch movies with a big bowl of buttery popcorn between their laps .  But he decided to keep his mouth shut because saying any one of those things would only lead to more teasing from Charlie about being gay when technically he was only half-gay.

"So, just ask him out."

"Charlie, you are an absolute genius.  How did I not think of this before?  What I have I been doing for the past three months?  All this time, and I could have just asked him out," Dean replied, thick with sarcasm.  "And then, when he says no I still have to live with the guy."

" _If_   he says no and you can't handle living with him anymore, you can always just move in with me and Ash," Benny put in.  "Ash prefers to pass out on that stupid couch over there if he comes home at all.  I think he's slept in the bunk a total of two times."

"But he's also my friend, Benny, I don't want to lose him as a friend just because I want to--" Kiss him?  Take him out on dates?  Get in his pants?  Marry him?  Hell, he didn't even know what he really wanted to do.  

"It's okay, Dean," Charlie said softly, as she stood up to reach over and rub his hair.  "Until you grow a pair of rocks and ask  Cas  out, you can always complain to us."

"You suck," Dean growled without much conviction, pushing her hand away as she burst out laughing.

But he knew she was right.  Nothing was going to happen if he just sat there pining after  Cas , he had to grow a pair  and do  _ something _ .  But there seemed to be so much going against him.   Cas  didn't like to revisit things, so if he did say yes, it would be one probably very mind-blowing, truly epic round of sex and then back to friends and Dean wanted more than that.  And if  Cas  didn't want him in that way, if he just wanted to be friends, then they were both left in a very uncomfortable situation.

"You know Dean, at the beginning of my senior year there was this girl," Charlie paused to whistle in appreciation, "and you wouldn't  _ believe _ .  She was absolutely gorgeous--curly blonde hair, long legs, big, brown eyes.  But she was also really kind and patient--she always helped me with my math homework and sometimes she would sit with me at lunch when no one else would.  So I asked her if she wanted to come back to my place one day to hang out and watch Star Trek or something and she said yes."

"And then you found out that she was head-over-heels for you and the two of you made out while Star Trek was completely ignored," Dean cut in.  "The two of you went on awesome dates and then, sadly, the end of your senior year arrived and the two of you decided to cut it off because you were going to different colleges and it was the logical thing to do.  And even though you both had fun together, you weren't soul-mates so you decided to part as friends and ride off in different directions into the sunset."

"No, we went back to my place and I found out that she was completely straight.  Horribly straight.  Straighter than an arrow.  But my point is, I got up asked her and even though she didn't know that I was totally crushing on her, we had a great time and watched Star Trek together and I made a friend."

"But I don't want to be friends."

"Dean, you're whining," Benny commented, eyes still glued to the television.

"Too bad."

"Just ask him, Dean," Charlie practically pleaded.  "Just ask him to a movie or something.  It's not going to hurt anyone."

"Yeah, maybe."


	5. V

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys, I'm really sorry I haven't updated in forever and I also apologize that this is such a short chapter. Things have been really hectic at work and I've been busy with a few classes, but I wanted to be able to post something. I'm hoping to have a bit more time this week and the next chapter will be much, much longer! (I also promise that it will be much, much better!) But I wanted to at least give you a little bit since it's been so long since the last update! I'm really sorry!

 

 

"Dean, I don't think that it's such a good time to be coming home," Sam 's  voice carried over the phone hesitantly.   Dean  had spent the last fifteen minutes sprawled over his bed arguing with Sam about coming home for the winter holiday.  

"And what? Leave you there alone with John when I could be there?  I don't think so Sammy."

"Things are alright though," Sam insisted for what felt like the millionth time.  "But you  know  that he's still angry with you for leaving to go to college.  If you come home , he's just going to want to fight."

Dean sighed and pinched his brow between his index and thumb.

"Dean, you know I don't blame you for--"

"No, I know  you don't  Sammy," he interrupted.  Sam was the one that originally encouraged Dean to go to college after he'd found a few brochures under his brother's pillow.  Dean hadn't seriously been considering the idea--college wasn't for him, he was su pposed to stay in Lawrence and  take care of his family \--he'd just been toying with the thought.  But Sam had always loved reading Dean's stories, no matter how embarrassed Dean was to show them to him, and was one hundred percent convinced that he could become a best-selling author.  Dean wasn't so convinced.  Sure, it would be nice to make a living doing something that he loved but it wasn't practical.   And as much as he loved the idea of leaving Lawrence, riddled with bad memories, he needed to stay for his little brother.  Although he knew that Sam was aware of how bad their father could get, Dean never let his little brother take the brunt of their father's anger.  If he left, who was going to protect Sam?  In the end, though, Sammy won, like he always did, and Dean left for California.  

"It's just, I  _ hate _  leaving you alone there with him."

"I can take care of myself, you know," Sam replied.  Dean knew that he was more than capable--John may be an angry drunk but Sam was nearly six feet and four inches of pure muscle--but it was hard for him to just forget all the lessons that their father had drilled into his head when he was a kid.  It had always been his job to take care of Sammy.  If something happened to him, it was because Dean dropped the ball.  "Plus, Missouri said that if things get too bad I could always stay with her for a little while."

Dean sighed again as  Cas  slipped in the door, his shirt damp with sweat and his cheeks flushed.  Dean spared him a nod and a wave but he wasn't going to stare.  

"I know, but still...."

"You shouldn't worry so much, Dean.  I can handle John."

Sam was more than capable of handling John, Dean was positive about that.  And  he knew that it  wasn't likely that John would go after Sam, no matter how drunk off his ass he was.  Sam was always the good kid, the one that was going places.  John was proud of his youngest son although Dean could never fathom why because he was more of a father than John ever was to the kid.  

"Of course you can.  You could probably take a man out by looking at him," Dean laughed and Sam chuckled on the other end.  "But I still want to see you, it's been a while."

"Somehow I think we'll survive," he could practically see Sam rolling his eyes.  "But, really, I don't think that you should come back for Christmas."

"Who's  gonna  get you your Barbie dolls then?"  

Sam snorted.  "That was cruel.  I was like six."

Dean laughed.  "Yeah, sorry about that buddy."

"It's okay.  I know you were trying."

There was an awkward lull in the conversation.  T hey didn't often bring up the years when John had dragged them all over the country, bumming it at run-down motel after run-down motel, before they ended back up in Lawrence.  And when they did, they didn't usually acknowledge that it was Dean that always had to try and make ends meet--that Dean was the one who would get the five-finger discount on food when they hadn't eaten or that Dean was the one that would cheat the drunks at the pool tables to get the money to rent the room for a few more nights when John disappeared.  

"Anyways, I have some homework to get done and, yeah, I  gotta  go," Sam said ab ru ptly .

"Yeah, uh, me too.  It was nice talking to you."

"I'm serious, though, Dean.  He'll just get angry.  Really angry."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah...maybe I'll just rent a motel room for the month and you can drop by whenever you're not busy," he suggested.  "I'd hate to have to stay at school the whole break."

"Yeah, that sounds good.  I'll see you around then!"

Sam didn't give him a chance to say good bye before disconnecting the call.

"You're spending the holiday in a motel room?"  Cas  asked, peeking out of the kitchen with  a spoon in his mouth and yogurt in his hand.  

"Probably.  You spending break with your family?"

He rounded the corner, waltzing into the room with unintentional swagger he maintained.  "Yes.  Before I left, my family forced me to keep up the tradition of returning home for Christmas.  Are you not going to see your family?"

Cas  wrapped his lips around his spoon, sucking off some of the yogurt and  Dean forced himself to tear his eyes away.  "Uh, nah.  I don't think so."

His roommate cocked his head to the side, the way he did immediately before he asked a question.

"What's your family like?" He offered before  Cas  could open his mouth.

He paused in consideration, kindly allowing himself to be derailed.  "Hectic."

Dean smiled.  "Yeah?  How many kids?"

"Six.  Michael, Lucifer, Gabriel, Rachel, Hael , Anael .  I am the youngest."

For a moment he considered asking about the names, especially Lucifer's but decided that  Cas  had probably heard enough of that in his life.  "That doesn't sound too bad."

Cas  smirked.  "You haven't met them."

"I've got one.  Kid brother.  Sammy."  Dean smiled and reached to grab his wallet off the nightstand, flipping it open to a picture of Sam smiling next to their Uncle Bobby from the last time they were in Sioux Falls.  He passed the picture to  Cas .  "Here."

He smiled down briefly at it before returning his gaze to Dean.  "Is this your father?"

Dean's mouth tasted acrid  at the thought of John Winchester.  "No.  That's our Uncle Bobby.  He lives up in South Dakota."

"Are you sure you're not going to visit your brother ?  I'm sure he misses you."

He huffed a humorless laugh as  Cas  passed his wallet back.  "No.  I don't think so.  I'd like to check in on the kid but our dad's not so happy with me right now."

"Well, I'm sure he -- "

"I'm not going,  Cas ."

He chewed at the inside of his lip, glancing down and fiddling with the edge of his Led Zeppelin shirt.  A nervous habit that brought the corners of Dean's mouth up into a gentle smile despite his briefly sour mood.

"In that case, I was wonder..." he paused and sucked in a deep breath before the words began to spill from his mouth, lacking any of his usual eloquence.  "You see, my siblings are very well adjusted socially and I am always the one who returns to our family gatherings alone.  Before I left Lucifer and Gabriel were teasing me about it and I had been hoping that maybe reaching college would introduce me to a wider range of people and this could possibly be the first year that I didn't return alone.  Unfortunately that is not quite the case and you are the only person that I feel I have gro wn close to -- " the warm feeling hat had curled up in Dean's chest  at these words vaporized as his mind conjured an image of  Cas  leaning into Balthazar by the camp fire, " -- You see... I wanted to ask... if it's not too much trouble.  Would you like...to accompany me to visit my family, Dean?"

He finished, his voice small, revealing his vulnerability.  Dean forgot to think about Balthazar.

"Of course,"  Cas  started again before he could answer,  "I would be happy to pay for the gas money and, if you want, we could bring Sam along.  If your father doesn't mind, of course.  And -- "

" Cas !"  he interrupted.  "I would love to come.  And we can split the gas money."

Cas's  shoulders sagged and the tension drained out of his muscles.  A smile lit up his face.

 

* * *

Two weeks later and it was Dean's turn to be nervous.  Even though he had triple checked that they had packed everything that they needed and that the duffel bags were safely tucked into the trunk of the Impala, he had insisted on returning inside again _ just to be sure _ .   Castiel  had patiently waited in the passenger seat of the car, occasionally flipping through the songs of the tape that Dean had left in the stereo,  while Dean wrung his hands and wiped the sweat from the back of his neck.

"Do we have the toothpaste?"  he asked, ducking down to peer into the car where  Cas  was sitting exactly here he had left him, hands folded politely in his lap.

"Yes, Dean.  We put them in the side pockets of the bags."

"Yeah, alright.  Let's go then."  He patted his back pocket, panic flaring in his chest at the absence of the usual bul ge  of his keys.  "Shit  Cas !  I don't have the keys!  How could I forget the keys."

"Dean -- "

"I'll be right back!"  He turned on  his heel to sprint back up to the dorm but stopped at  Cas's  second call of his name.  "Yeah,  Cas ?  Did you forget something?"

"No, Dean.  But the keys are in the ignition."

He huffed a breath, blood coloring his cheeks a deep red that was almost as embarrassing as forgetting that he'd already the started the car -- as if the roaring engine and the blaring stereo weren't hints enough.  "Oh, yeah.  I guess we can leave now."

Dean  _ knew _  that there was nothing to panic about.  Absolutely nothing.  He'd been living with  Cas  and his toned muscles and his hip bones sharp enough to cut something and his messy bedhead and his enveloping blue eyes for months now.  A road trip with the guy shouldn't be a problem.  Except  Cas  wasn't just a  _ guy _ _._  He wasn't one of Dean's buddies -- he wasn't Benny or Charlie or any of the boys on the football team in high school, he was _ Cas _ .   He was who Dean had to force himself not to stare at, he was who Dean daydreamed about, he was who Dean didn't have a problem missing sleep to talk to.  N ow Dean had trapped himself with  Cas  inside the doors of the Impala, which had never seemed so confining before.  And he was definitely panicking.


	6. VI

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I know that I promised that this chapter would be better than the last and I hope that I delivered.

 

 

"Here you go son," the man said gruffly, mouth moving underneath his salt and pepper beard.  Dean smiled and reached across the counter to take the motel key from the owner's hand.  What appeared to be the edge of a tree branch, inked in with deep browns and vibrant greens, peaked out from beneath the flannel sleeve and Dean felt his gut twist and the smile slide off his face.  There was someone out there with -- likely the greying  woman merrily writing away at the desk behind the counter -- with a matching tattoo.  The same way there was someone out there with a pair of blue birds on their right shoulder blade to match Benny's.  The same way there was someone out there with a castle painted on the back of their legs -- spires stretching up to their mid-thighs -- to match Charlie's.  The same way there was someone with a massive, growling tiger spanning their entire back  to match Sam's.  The same way there was someone out there with delicate wings traced over their dainty back that would be a carbon copy of  Cas's .

And Dean was painfully reminded that there was no one out there that was predestined to spend the rest of their life by his side.  

He forced his smile back onto his face, like he always had, and took the key.  Room four.  "Thanks."

"No problem."

The bell attached to the door rang again when Dean exited and he was met with what was possibly the greatest vision in his life.  His mouth went dry and he forgot to think about soul  mates and tattoos.   Something similar may or may not have found its way into a few of his daydreams before.  

Cas  was leaning against the side of the Impala, in all her sleek, black glory, with his hair perfectly disheveled.  He had donned a black, leather jacket over his thin, white t-shirt and too tight jeans and Dean could practically feel the blood rushing downstairs.  

The first leg of their trip had gone far better than Dean could have expected.  Despite the rocky start in which he was internally hyperventilating and fretting over every detail under the sun while  Cas  politely endured the silence in the passenger seat with his hands folded in his lap, he eventually relaxed.  He was surprised to find how easy it was to have  Cas  in the passenger seat, surprised to realize that he would miss seeing  Cas's  toothy grin with the different landscapes speeding by in the background when this road trip was over, surprised at how naturally the conversation flowed.  But he doubted that he could have relaxed as much as he did had  Cas  been wearing a leather jacket the whole trip.  

"I'd forgotten how cold it gets in Utah in December,"  Cas  smiled and waltzed forward.  Hell, all the guy needed was a burning cigarette between his fingers and an accent and he could have walked straight out of a 1950's greaser film.  

"You've been here before?"

"Well, not  here  in particular but Salt Lake City, yes.  A few years ago Anna had made it her goal to visit every Mormon temple in the continental United States -- she dragged me along to a few of them."

Had they been on a route that would have taken them through Salt Lake City, Dean could have made it there tonight but  Cas  had insisted they stopped when the sun began to set, after only six hours of driving.  He had said that they should turn in early tonight,  get up early tomorrow morning and attempt to reach Law rence  before midnight.  So they had pulled over in Enoch, Utah where Dean could see the horizon in almost any direction he looked and he doubted the town had too many buildings over one story.

"Which room are we?"

" Uhm , four."

Cas  smiled again and Dean swore to God that his heart stopped for a full minute.  All he could do was stand there, probably with his mouth hanging open but he couldn't be sure, while  Cas  grabbed their duffels from the trunk and carry them inside.  He was thankful that at least inside, where the heaters were blasting,  Cas  would have to take the leather jacket off and Dean could become a fully functioning human being again.

 

* * *

 

 

"Are you sure you're making that right?"  Cas  peeked over Dean's shoulder, breath warming his neck.  

"Of course I'm making it right.  How hard can it be to make microwave mac and cheese,  Cas ?"  He snapped back -- slightly on edge about  Cas's  proximity and slightly irritated that  Cas  was, as usual, right.  He definitely wasn't making this right; it looked like noodles floating in yellowing water.

"Maybe we should just order a pizza."

"Why?"

Cas  pursed his lips and made a popping sound.  "Maybe I don't like mac and che ese -- " that was a lie and Dean knew it, " -- plus, I've never had pizza in Utah.  It might taste different."

"I can guarantee that it won't."

"How could you deny me the experience though?  It might taste better."

"I doubt that take out pizza from Utah could possibly taste any different than take out pizza from California.  You wouldn't be missing out on much."

Cas  pouted.  "Please Dean."

He scowled down at the macaroni and cheese that had long since been a lost cause before tossing it into the garbage.  Stupid full lips and enormous, blue eyes.  They were practically as bad as Sam's puppy dog face.  "Fine."

Cas  perked up, smiling, before crawling across the bed to grab the phone, the spiral cord stretching across his abdomen as he laid back.  

"I promise I can cook," Dean muttered when  Cas  hung up.  He had ordered a veggie pizza and Dean had grumbled under his breath, inaudible to  Cas , that he  _ needed _  meat to survive.  What kind of self-righteous man ordered a pizza without  meat .  But because it was  Cas , he knew he wasn't going to say anything.  

"I know you can cook, Dean.  I live with you, remember?"

"How could I forget?"

Cas  giggled -- honest to God  _ giggled _  -- before the room lapsed into a brief, comfortable silence.

"Tell me about your family."

"What's there to tell?"

"Well, hopefully something seeing how I'm going to be spending almost two weeks with them.  Start with your oldest brother -- Michael, was it?"

"Michael and  Luci  are twins,"  Cas  paused, clucking his tongue and glancing at the ceiling which was ridden with water stains and a few other blemishes that were a bit more questionable.  "Michael is mature.  Very mature.  He's been taking care of us since his eighteenth birthday when my d ad skipped town leaving a note telling Michael that we were all his responsibility."

"That's one hell of a birthday present."

"My father never was one for birthday presents.  But Michael did well.  We've all graduated and no one ended up on the streets smoking crack cocaine,"  Cas  continued.  "I think he did better than anyone could have anticipated.  He told us that he wasn't about to let our father's idiocy stop him from getting his degree and went to college at the same time he was raising us.  He graduated with a law degree and a four-point-oh GPA and he never forgot to pack each of us a lunch every morning for school."

Dean could hardly imagine what life must have been life for  Cas's  eldest brother.  He had yet to meet him and he already respected him more than he could imagine respecting the president of the United States.  Dean may have done the majority of Sam's upbringing while their father was passed out on a couch or an unforgiving motel bed, cradling a bottle of liquor in his arms but he couldn't have done it all while getting a degree -- a law degree, no less -- or without the help of Uncle Bobby and Aunt Ellen.

" Luci , of course, tried to help him and I believe that he appreciated her attempts.  But she was always more a free spirit and less mature.  She wasn't made for raising kids when she had just finished being one.  If anything, I think it would have been more appropriate if she had been Gabriel's twin seeing as how all they did was pull pranks together.  

"Gabriel was almost the most immature in the family.   I don't think he aged a day over twelve.  I also don't think that he can go an entire week without pulling some sort of prank on someone.  His diet is also mostly composed of sugar.  The first thing he does every morning is eat a Tootsie-Pop -- usually raspberry -- and then goes down for breakfast, where you will find him sprinkling sugar on his eggs."

Even though  Cas  didn't say much more than basic observations about Gabriel, Dean could hear the warmth in his voice and it was easy to tell which brother had been a good friend to him in his childhood.

"Next are Rachel and  Hael, who are also twins.  Neither said much or participated in familial things after our father skipped out.  They were both the closest to him, h e had read them the stories he wrote before the fell asleep long after the rest of us insisted that we were too old for bedtime tales, and they were particularly injured that he would up and abandon them.  I suppose that we should consider ourselves lucky that they would want to come back each year for Christmas but I also suppose that moving out when they were of age would have provided them a better environment to recover in.

"Anna, like  Luci , is a bit of a free-spirit too but she knew when to be mature.  She helped Michael more than any of us.  She was always kind and instead of going to college, she left for India  when she turned eighteen.  She's been there ever since, teaching children English and helping different organizations build wells and establish libraries.  But she always comes home for Christmas."

When he spoke of Anna his voice held the same warmth it did when he spoke of Gabriel.  

"And then there's me."

"Tell me about you."

"You know about me, Dean," he scowled.

"Not enough."

He sighed.  "I have brown hair and blue eyes."  He paused, glancing up at the ceiling again.  "I like running and strawberry yogurt.  Anna says that I grew up too fast but Michael said that I didn't grow up fast enough.  He also things that I should have pursued a 'more practical major' but he never did anything to stop me from going into art.  I think that, deep down underneath the façade that he had to put on to take the place of a father, he supported us in all of our pursuits regardless of practicality.  He probably loved us more than our father was ever capable of and he never would have forced any of us to do something that wouldn't have made us happy."

"You're talking about Michael again," Dean interrupted at the same time there was a knock on the door.

Cas  jumped off the bed and practically sang, "The pizza's here!"

Dean smiled to himself as  Cas  bounced back to the bed, sitting on the edge of Dean's bed and setting the box between the two of them.

"Back to yourself."

Cas  shook his head, taking a generous bite of his slice.  "It's your turn."

He thought about protesting but he supposed it was only fair.   Cas  had been talking for a while but he didn't think anyone could blame him for wanting to listen to the deep bass of  Cas's  voice.  

"I was seven when our house caught on fire -- faulty wiring.  Sam and I shared a room at the time.  I don't remember too much about it;  it too bright and too dark at the same time, I couldn't see four feet in front of me and even though, looking back, I know it couldn't have been too loud it felt deafening then.  All I really remember was our dad slamming the door open and telling us to get out.  Sam was only three at the time, so I grabbed him and ran.  Out on the front lawn, our next door neighbor came running up in her nightgown, cordless phone in hand.  I suppose she was the one who called nine-one-one but all I could think about was how thin her legs were.  I was convinced that gravity was going to crush them and she would fall over at any moment.  I know it's really   stupid  and there were actual things to be worried about.  But that's all I could focus on.  When the fire truck and ambulances pulled up neither of our parents had come out yet.  

"My mom had run to our room because she didn't know that Dad had already gotten us out.  The roof collapsed on her and they said she died instantly.  It wasn't much consolation -- I doubt she could have been anything but terrified at the time;  I've lived in seconds that felt like days and I think that those seconds before she died  felt anything but instantaneous.  My dad had been at the front door when he saw us on the front lawn but not Mom so he had gone back inside.  He had been at the doorway to our bedroom when the roof collapsed over her.  He never talked about it but we always knew that he saw her die.  

"But he couldn't just leave her in there so he had tried to save her despite the fact that, logically, there was no way in hell that she had survived those burning beams falling straight on top of her.  He would have died in there trying to rescue a corpse if the firemen hadn't dragged him out."

Cas  had stopped eating his pizza, only two bites in, and Dean hadn't touched his yet.  He wasn't one to spill his sob story because he didn't want anyone's pity but now that he had started he found that it was cathartic to tell someone.  

"My dad kind of lost it after that.  We skipped from town to town, staying in motels and switching schools every few months.  We only left one place once Dad was sober enough to drive again.  It wasn't until I was fifteen that our Uncle Bobby was able to get a hold of us and forced John to settle down again so that we could finish up our schooling in one place.  He told Dad that he could be a selfish, self-absorbed bastard when his kids were out of the house but until then he had to be a father and the mother that our mom never had the chance to be.

"It would have seemed logical for us to settle down in Sioux Falls with Bobby but Dad insisted on moving back to Lawrence.  I don't think that that decision was the best for any of us but at least it was one place."

Even though it seemed as though he had been making a habit of telling  Cas  things that he avoided telling anyone, he left out the parts where John was too drunk to take care of either of them.  He left out the parts where he was the one that put food on the table for Sam even if it meant he had to steal something from the Seven-Eleven down the street.  He left out the parts where John came home drunk and angry at his kids for killing Mary, screaming that if they had never been born then Mary wouldn't have gone to their room to look for them and would have been alive.  He left out the parts where he would take the brunt of those grief-induced bursts of anger in form of a beating so that Sam wouldn't have to go to school the next day with a black eye and split lip.

"Oh God, Dean, I'm so -- "

"Please don't say you're sorry."

Cas  pressed his lips together and Dean managed to mutter a 'thank you' as he reached for a slice of pizza which had reached room temperature by now.

"I can't believe you didn't put any meat on this," he mumbled, smiling around his first bite.

Cas  smiled and seemed relieved that the somber atmosphere was broken.  "Not everything needs meat, Dean."

"I beg to differ."

"Now it's your turn to tell me about yourself."

Dean grumbled, cursing himself for asking  Cas  that question when he knew it would come to bite in him the ass.  "What's there to tell?"

"Get on it, Dean.  I had to."

"Okay, okay.  My name is Dean Winchester.  I'm an Aquarius.  I enjoy sunsets, long walks on the beach, frisk y women,   -- "   _What the hell._   It's not like he had much to lose, " -- blue eyes and brown hair.  I also have an affinity for leather jackets."

Cas's  eyebrows shot up but before the panic could even begin to spark in Dean's chest cavity,  Cas  opened his mouth.  "What a co incidence .  I too have an affinity for leather jackets as well as sunsets and long walks on the beach.  I must admit, however, that I do not enjoy frisky women and I prefer green eyes."

So maybe the carbon copy of  Cas's  wings wouldn't be etched into such a dainty back after all, but that was currently the least of Dean's concerns.  Was he supposed to do something from here?  It seemed like this was the perfect opportunity to admit that he had been crazy for  Cas  since the beginning of the school year but he wasn't about to blurt something like that out when they were going to be spending eighteen hours cooped up in a car together tomorrow and he was one hundred percent sure that  Cas  reciprocated his feelings.  It seemed like he might.  And if he didn't, it did seem like he was up for something that would be more than friendship even if it didn't mean anything serious.  And Dean could live with that.  If this was a girl, Dean could have read her like a book.  He would have known whether or not she wanted more to do with him and would have been able to kiss her hours ago.  Hell, he could have been kissing a girl months ago.  But this was foreign.  He'd been with guys before but he never had the opportunity to become as experienced with them as he had with girls.  Where John would clap his son on the back if he had seen him tonguing a girl, he would have beat the living fuck out of him if he'd caught him kissing a boy.

In the end though, Dean didn't have to make that de cision.   Cas  deposited his half-eaten slice of pizza back in the box and crawled forward, sliding himself neatly between Dean's legs.  His breath caught somewhere at the base of his throat and if Dean had thought that his heart had stopped early then he was positive that it had now.  

"Shit,  Cas ," he murmured.  He could feel  Cas's  breath fanning over his cheeks, his eyes were so close that it was hurting Dean's to look at them, and the distance between his mouth and  Cas's  was shorter  than he ever thought it could be.  And it was only beginning to register that the one and only  Castiel Collins between his legs.

"Is this okay, Dean?"   Cas's  voice was low and breathy whisper.  Dean could smell the pizza when  Cas  exhaled.  

He gulped, forcing the sal via  down his throat.  " Uhm , yeah."

Shit.  He had to remind himself to inhale and to blink and remind his heart to beat.

"I'm going to kiss you now, if you don't mind."

"Yeah, I don't m -- "

Cas  cut him off and he had never not minded something so much in his entire life.   Cas's  lips were chapped and soft but pushed against his with such insistence that Dean ended up  pressed  against the wall behind the head of the bed.   And kissing him wasn't explosive.  There were no fireworks, no undue realizations of love.  It wasn't life-altering.  But it was comfortable and exciting.  It was sloppy and needy but it was  Cas .  He didn't realize that he want ed to spend the rest of his life with the boy that had a perpetual case of sex hair but he did realize that he wouldn't mind doing this again and again for a long while yet.  

He pushes back against  Cas's  mouth and he can feel  Cas's  fingertips running up the side of his back to settle at the nape of his neck, pulling him in closer.  He opens his mouth slightly, an open invitation to  Cas , who's  tongue runs along the inside of his upper lip.

Cas  breaks away for a moment, gasping in a lungful of much needed oxygen.  "Is this okay?"

Dean tries to answer but his mouth feels too dry so he nods instead and his reward with a breathtaking smile.  

Cas  moves back in, more forceful  this time, practically slamming Dean against the wall, sending a jolt of excitement through him.  Girls didn't normally treat him like this, with the exception of Rhonda Hurley in his senior year with her brass sexual assertion and pink, satin panties (a night that enjoyed more than all of his escapades with Lisa, who was definitely a close second with her eager hands and flexible limbs).  But Dean enjoyed this more than he had ever enjoyed anything previously.

As Dean trailed his hands up  Cas's  back, he moved forward, positioning himself directly over Dean's hips, before Dean could even begin to pull him in.   Cas  rolled his hips into Dean's and he became painfully aware of his hard on and his heart beating at a million miles an hour in between his ribs.  

Even though it had only been seconds, Dean already ached for the pressure against him again.  He arched up, grinding into  Cas's  open legs and  Cas  graciously reciprocated in a much more aggressive manner, forcing Dean's hips back onto the mattress and massaging their groins together.

A moan escaped Dean's lips but he was too preoccupied to be embarrassed about it.  He leaned into  Cas's  kiss, sliding his hands across his hipbones and up his shirt.

Cas  pulled away abruptly.  "Wait."

Dean froze, fear pooling in his gut.  He couldn't have fucked up already, could he?

"I don't want to...tonight."

This  Cas ;  shy and soft-spoken, looking away from Dean's eyes when he spoke,  was so different from the  Cas  that Dean had just been acquainted with previously, demanding and forceful. 

"No, it's okay  Cas , I get it."  And he did, even if his crotch didn't.

"It's not you or anything.  I just...I mean, I never thought...it's just  kinda  fa -- I had been under the impression..."  Cas  stuttered over his words, blushing and wringing his hands but Dean didn't interrupt him or tell him to spit it out.   Cas  had always been so patient with him.  "I had been under the impression that you were off-limits.  I had thought that you liked...girls."

Dean found himself smiling.  Now that they were sitting here like this,  Cas  still on top of Dean, it was almost silly that he had waited this long.  "I had thought that you were off-limits.  I mean, I thought you liked girls and you have a soul mate out there somewhere."

He knew that the bitterness that he had experienced his whole life leaked into his voice at the last sentence, but he couldn't keep it out of his voice for the life of him.  It wasn't fair.

Cas  scrunched his nose up.  "Girls?  No thank you."

And then he leaned back in for another kiss, this time softer.  His mouth was warm against Dean's as he murmured, "And I don't believe in soul mates."


	7. VII

 

 

The sky had barely reached the light shade of grey that signaled the arrival of the impending sunrise when Dean woke up.  His eyes were still heavy with sleep and his mind was clouded and grogg y but he was well aware of  Cas's  limbs tangled with his.  He smiled to himself and considered waking  Cas  with some activities similar to last night's.  He thought better of it at the last minute thought --  Cas  deserved to get as much sleep as he could before they hit the road -- and slipped out of bed, doing his best not to jostle his....His what?  Roommate or best friend hardly fit the description anymore but that was a problem for another time.  Maybe he would ask  Cas  about it when he woke up but it wasn't much of an issue.  Dean didn't see much of a point in slapping labels on things.  He understood why people did it and he respected that but he just didn't want to put the effort into naming something when he could be occupying his time with something more important.  And currently that more important something he could be occupying his time with as touching every inch of  Cas's  bare skin he could possibly get his hands on.  A fantasy that, after last night, had a much greater chance at becoming reality.

"Hey."  Speak of the devil.

"Yeah,  Cas?"

"Come back.  It's cold.  There's no heater in this craphole ."

"Nope.  You should be getting up anyways.  We have to get going."

Cas  groaned and buried his head under what had been Dean's pillow.  

"I'll make the coffee."

"I don't want coffee.  I want sleep."

"And I want to kiss you but you don't see me whining."  A smile tugged at the corner of  Cas's  mouth despite the frown he was desperately trying to keep firmly fixed on his face.   


"C'mon, get up!"  Dean nudged the pile of blankets  Cas  had burrowed under during the night.

"Were you serious about the coffee?"

"Nope.  There's no coffee in this joint -- "

" Craphole ."

" -- but I'll buy you some on the way out of town."

"No. Now."  He whined, dragging out the latter word longer than was strictly necessary.

Dean chuckled to himself.   Cas  in the mornings never ceased to amuse him.  "C'mon.  This was your idea.  We were going to get up early so we could get on the road faster."

"Yeah but I didn't plan on staying up kissing you, you asshole."

"I'm the asshole?  You started it!"

"But you're the asshole with gorgeous eyes and perfect lips.  How was I to help myself?"

"Yeah.   _I'm_   the asshole with gorgeous eyes and perfect lips."

"Yes.  You are."

Dean rolled his eyes at Cas's matter-of-fact tone of voice.

Twenty minutes, a lot of groaning and some fake sobbing from Cas, and quite a few kisses later both of them had managed to get into the car and were well on their way out of Enoch, accompanied by two cups of coffee from a twenty-four hour café down the street from the motel.  

* * *

 

 

Twelve hours later, as Dean had allowed himself a generous amount of speeding on an open stretch of highway, found them in Hays, Kansas with only half a state left until they reached Lawrence.  They had kept themselves entertained, telling stories from the various childhood road trips they had been on.  And even though Dean vividly remembered the less than comfortable and less than conventional parts of growing up with John Winchester with his nasty drinking habit and an old car with an air conditioning  system that was broken at the time, he had to admit that there were some parts of it that he wouldn't trade for the world.  Like the time he and Sam had snuck out of the motel in Brandon, Iowa when their dad was passed out on the stained sheets and visited the world's largest frying pan.  (Technically, there were six of them in the United States that competed for the world's largest -- as ten year old Sam had informed him at the time.)  Or the time that they had gone to see the world's largest rubber band ball in Lauderhill, Florida which was a lot less cool than it sounded.  He told Cas about sticking the army men in vents with Sam that rattled every time they turned the air on until it broke when he was ten (John had found a way to blame them for it even though the toys had been jammed in there for two years already).  And carving their initials into the dashboard (which Cas had insisted on seeing himself, peeling back the top layer as they passed through Grand Junction, to view the sloppy scratches of a ten year old and a seven year old).  He told Cas about the Forth of July in 1996 when they had set off an entire crate of fireworks and he told him about the time that he tried to teach his little brother how to swim when they were holed up in Fort Lauderdale.  

And Cas told him about the trip he had taken with his sister Anna, in her attempt to visit every Mormon temple in the United States (she only had three left).  And the time Gabriel had managed to drag him along on an expedition to break into a bubble gum factory (in which his older brother had found out that there wasn't much of the finished product to be found and breaking the law really hadn't been worth it).  And the time that Michael had threatened to beat Gabriel to a pulp and kick him out after he found him smoking marijuana with Cas in the bathroom when the younger was only thirteen (even though Dean had smoked his first joint long before his thirteenth birthday he would have shot the neighbor's cat before he put drugs in Sammy's hands and he was beginning to think that Gabriel wasn't the greatest influence despite sounding like a really cool guy).  

By the time they hit the town limits of Lawrence,  Cas's phone was showing eleven o'clock and an old Bob Dylan tape was pouring out of the speakers on low volume.  Probably not the best choice in music as Knocking on Heaven's Door wasn't doing much to keep Dean awake but Cas seemed to be enjoying the song immensely, his eyes half closed as he hummed along, so Dean didn't say anything.  

"We almost there?"  Cas asked as the last note of the song resonated.

"Almost buddy.  Just gonna pick up Sam and then we'll find somewhere to stay for the night, 'kay?"

" Mhm," he nodded as the next song, Final Theme, started up and Dean decided that this definitely wasn't the tape to be listening to at this time of night unless he was trying his damnedest  to fall asleep.  "Is it okay if I kiss you in front of your brother?"

"Course, Cas," he didn't hesitate in answering even though he had yet to tell Sam that he found males just as intriguing as females but he didn't take his brother as the type to stop talking to him just because of something like that.  

The brunette smiled to himself, eyes sliding further closed with each word sung and Dean had to remind himself to keep his eyes on the road.  It would be unbearably embarrassing if Jody Mills, the sheriff who Dean knew too well thanks to his less than mild teenage years, because he ran into somebody's mailbox because he was staring at the beautiful boy next to him.  And he wouldn't be surprised if Jody took a few pictures and sent it to everyone he knew -- they would be laughing about it up in Sioux Falls over  beers at the Roadhouse before he knew what hit him.  But it would almost be worth it just to watch Cas.

The whole deal was something that Dean found really embarrassing and he didn't think that he would ever have the guts to let himself speak the words out loud.  He wasn't used to it.  He wasn't used to being completely smitten with someone.  He was used to training his eyes on the curves of a girl or the slice of skin that often showed between the waistband and bottom of the shirt when a guy stretched, he was used to lightly dragging his teeth over the skin of a boy whose name was long forgotten just to be rewarded with a deep moan, he was used to trailing his hands up a girl's back and tangling his fingers in her long hair, he was used to quick, messy fucks and avoiding looking at his partner's tattoo while doing so.  He wasn't accustomed to making breakfast with someone or making them coffee before they woke up because he knew that they would need it before they rushed off to class or being content with watching someone fall asleep slowly in the passenger seat of the Impala.  And of all the things he didn't think he would ever admit, it was how perfect it was to him to have Cas on the bench seat next to him with the darkened horizon rushing by outside the window.  It felt so comfortable and, for lack of a better word, _right_.  And that scared him half to death.  He wasn't supposed to feel for anyone like this.  Ever.  It wasn't meant for him.  

But tonight he didn't want to worry about it.  There would be tomorrow and the day after that and the day after that and the day after that.  There would eventually be a day when a man with wings trailing down his back to take Castiel away, but that day was not today and so Dean was going to enjoy it.  He had a beautiful boy with eyes that Dean swore contained galaxies in his passenger seat and he would be damned if he didn't relish it while he had it. 

"Hey man, can you change the tape while I run and get Sammy?" he asked, as he pulled the Impala to a stop at the curb across the road from the house.  He didn't want to chance waking John up by shining the headlights straight into the window in the middle of the night and the unmistakable growl of the Impala's engine would be a dead giveaway.  

Cas hummed in response and leaned forward to dig through the glove box even though Dean wasn't completely sure that  Cas hadn't opened his eyes enough to see any of the tapes.

Dean found himself smiling as he jogged across the darkened street.  He couldn't remember a time in his life where everything had seemed so perfect.  He didn't think that he could even imagine something of this caliber.  It was almost exhilarating.  He felt invincible and fragile all at once; like nothing could touch him but one small shift could bring his absolute world crumbling to the ground.

"Dean!" Sam's excited whisper came from the porch before Dean had even made it halfway across the dead lawn.

"Sammy!" He called back quietly.

Even though Sam cleared him by a good few inches, the fourteen year old ran down the steps and launched himself at his brother, wrapping him in up in his abnormally lanky limbs.  

"How've you been kiddo?"

Sam smiled, all geeky and reminiscent of that Fourth of July that Dean had told Cas about.  "I've been good Dean! How's college?"

"It's been alright," he replied.  "I'll tell you more about it later though.  Grab your stuff and we can hit the road, 'kay?  I'm exhausted."

The younger boy nodded, dashing back to the porch to grab a black duffel bag that soon joined the two already in the trunk of the Impala.  

While Dean had been out of the car,  Cas had changed the tape to a Doors tape that Sam had given him for his twelfth birthday.  Not too long after sliding behind the wheel did he discover that Jim Morrison wasn't much better at keeping him awake than Bob Dylan had been but as Cas slid his fingers between Dean's while Love Me Two Times leaked into the silence of the car, he couldn't find it in himself to ask for another change.  

 

* * *

"And then he jumped off the roof! In his underwear!"

Dean ducked his head to hide his rising blush and fought the urge to strangle Sam, who had Cas cracking up in the passenger seat over the plethora of stories his brother had imprinted in his memory about stupid things that Dean had done when they were kids.

"Shut it, Samantha! You're the one who broke your arm doing it."

"I was five!" Sam exclaimed followed immediately by Cas saying, "You let a five year old jump off a roof?"

"I was nine," Dean grumbled, adjusting his grip on the steering wheel.  He had had a good time that night, though; wearing his Superman boxers and a cape followed by a five-year-old Sam in Batman briefs and a mask.  Until Sam snapped his arm in half and Dean had to pedal him to the emergency room on the handlebars of the neighbor's bicycle -- God only knows where John was when that happened.

"Oh! I've got another good one!"

Cas sobered up slightly, a smile still plastered on his face but he wasn't clutching at his ribs with tears streaming down his face.  

"Okay, so when we were in Hardin Valley, Tennessee over -- "

"C'mon, Sammy!"  Dean knew exactly which story was going to come out of Sam's mouth next but was well aware of the fact that there wasn't much he was going to be able to do to delay the inevitable.  If, somehow the stars aligned and the Gods granted him this one win, and Sam didn't tell the story,  Cas  was sure to pester it out of him.  "Cut me a break! There must be an embarrassing story about you somewhere to tell!"  

"Nope," his little brother shook his head, popping the 'p'.  "I never did anything as stupid as you."

"Yeah, yeah."

"Alright, so Hardin Valley.  Dean was a...junior?"

"Yeah."

"Dean was a junior.  Dad took us there over the Christmas break.  Anyways, Dean, as usual, has a shit load of -- "

"Language, Sammy!"

Sam scowled at his older brother through the review mirror.  "Dean has a _ shit _  load of friends like two days in and he gets invited to this party.  He said he would be home before midnight but he never came back.  So, of course, Dad thinks that Dean's been murdered or kidnapped or something crazy like that and we get into the Impala to go looking for him.  We went down to this lake, where the sheriff said that the kids liked to hang out all the time and we pull up -- wait, are you ready for this?"

"Of course,"  Cas  answered and Dean avoided all eye contact, fixing his eyes on the road.

"So Dean's passed out, buck naked, on the shore,"  Cas  snorted and Dean's ears heated, "with half a bottle of beer super-glued to his hand!"

"Seriously?"

"Yeah.  Apparently he got really drunk and got all close and comfortable with this chick, Staci .  He doesn't remember what they did with his clothes though.  They probably threw them in the lake or something stupid."

Actually, it had been a guy.  Danny.  Quarterback on the Hardin Valley High School football team.  But he wasn't about to tell his dad that.

"What did your father do?"

"He clapped Dean on the back and asked if she was hot."  Exactly the opposite of what he would have done had he known that it wasn't a she.

Cas snorted again.   "Honestly?"

"Unfortunately," Dean mumbled as Sam nodded.

"Mm! Wait, pull over here!" Cas interrupted his own snickering to wave his hand at a gas station.  "I have to use the bathroom."

"Again?" 

"Yeah, didn't you go to the bathroom at the last stop?" Sam added.

The brunette scowled.  "Yeah but I practically drank that entire gallon of water myself.  You guys were supposed to drink some too."

"It's not our fault that you wouldn't share," Dean replied as he pulled into the gas station, even though Cas's recollection was far more accurate.  Him and Sam had enjoyed forty-eight ounces of Coca-Cola each and neither was so thirsty after that, leaving Cas to fend for himself with a gallon jug of Arrowhead water.

"Shut up,"  Cas  grumbled but didn't succeed in concealing a grin, stepping out of the car and shutting the door behind him.

Dean leaned his head back against the seat, letting his eyes fall closed and softer sounds of Stairway to Heaven  spill into his ears.  His eye sockets ached and his head was throbbing slightly but he wasn't just about to admit that he was exhausted.  

"So, you and Cas, huh?"

"Huh?" He peeked one eye open to glance at his brother.  He knew was coming and asking any sort of question was just him delaying the inevitable for the second time under thirty minutes.  And this was something that had definitely contributed to his lack of sleep last night.  They had checked into a motel room one town over from Lawrence; Cas  had been half asleep as they stumbled into the room, Dean wasn't much different, and he assumed that Sam wasn't too far behind either one of them.  He and Cas had collapsed into the same bed, leaving the other double open to Sam and his little brother hadn't said a single word about it that night or this morning.  But Dean knew that it was coming.

"You're together, right?"

Dean glanced at the gas station store window, littered with advertisements and colorful stickers, praying that Cas would emerge right then and there and slip back into the car.  He reached forward and fiddled with the volume of the music slightly before returning the sound to exactly where it had been before; the most obvious form of stalling.  He wasn't sure how to answer Sam's question.  He was almost asking two things in one -- the first one was if Dean was into boys and the second one was whether or not he and Cas were in a relationship.  Question number one was easy and Dean was completely prepared to admit to Sam that he was a full-fledged bisexual and had been since the day he left the womb but question number two wasn't so simple.  Hell, he didn't even know if Cas wanted to be in a relationship with him.  They had had a fantastic make out session, cuddled until five o'clock in the morning, held hands in the car, and passed out in the same motel bed.  They weren't definitely  friends but they weren't officially dating either.

"Are you asking if I like Cas?"

Sam raised one eyebrow.  "No.  I can tell that you like Cas .  I was just wondering if you two were together yet."

"What?  You can't  _tell _ ."

"Yes, I  _can _ ."

"No, you  _can't _ ."

"I  _can _  and I  _have _ ."

"Fine, whatever.  I do like him."

"So are you together yet or what?"

"I don't know Sam," Dean huffed, watching through the grimy windows as Cas emerged from a door at the back of the store, making his way towards the car.  "Maybe, maybe not."

"He likes you too, you know."

"How could he not?" Dean asked, throwing an infuriatingly cocky smirk over his shoulder.

Sam slapped him lightly on the back of the head as Cas slid back into the passenger seat.  "You're such a jerk."

"What did I miss?" Cas asked.

"Sam being a bitch."

In the review mirror he could see his little brother throwing him a bitch face with one eyebrow arched up.  He could almost imagine the kid with arms crossed and hips cocked to match that facial expression.  He smiled to himself, pulling out of the gas station and back onto the freeway.


	8. VIII

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry that it's taken me so long to update (again)! I was out of town for the week and had no internet whatsoever (I know, the horror) but I wrote this chapter tonight just for you guys!

 

 

Dean pulled the Impala neatly into space in the parking garage that Cas had directed him to.  He had originally planned on going straight from Lawrence to New York City without stopping, driving the whole nineteen hours in one go, and catching up on the few hours of sleep that he'd missed once they'd arrived at the Collin's apartment, which was probably a bit closer to a mainsonette than an actual apartment, but he couldn't resist at stopping for a few of the roadside attractions while they were on the road.  While Sam sighed and rolled his eyes more than Dean thought was possible, Cas was enthusiastic enough to make up for Sam (even though he knew that his little brother enjoyed himself, not that the kid would admit that).  

While in Illinois, they had stopped to see the world's largest ketchup bottle (and Dean couldn't let them see that without stopping at the nearest diner to order a large plate of  fries).  And when they were passing through Ohio, Cas had insisted on making an expedition to Wilmot to visit the world's largest cuckoo clock after which Sam had pointed out that the world's largest basket also resided in the Buckeye State (and it had been bigger than the dorm rooms back at home, Dean was sure of it).  They had shacked up in a roadside motel on the border of West Virginia (Dean and Cas shared a bed again, but Sam, thankfully, did nothing more than shoot his brother a smirk behind Cas's back and Dean, in his infinite maturity, had stuck his tongue out) before moving on.  They only made one pitstop in Pennsylvania -- the world's largest Yogi bear.  And even though it had taken an extra day to get to NYC, Dean wouldn't trade it for the world.  He was sure he laughed more in the past two days than he had in the past two weeks and he had a new stack of  Polaroids with his two favorite people in front of various, pointless landmarks that he would have to have Charlie scan onto the computer for him when he got back.

"If we're lucky, things will have cooled  down a little bit," Cas had said as they grabbed their duffels out of the trunk.  "They've all had a day to settle in."

Needless to say, things had not cooled down a little bit.  At least, as far as Dean could tell.  And if they had, then he was glad that they had taken the extra day because he would not want to be witness to the first day.

He could hear shouting and boisterous laughter from all the way down the hallway and when Cas had unlocked the door he was almost nailed in the face with an inflatable soccer ball, ducking at the last minute.  

"Hey, Cassie's made it!!" a boy with golden eyes shouted at the same time that someone in another room yelled, "Gabriel, what did I say about practicing soccer inside?"

"It's not like there's a whole lot of outside space in this city, Mikey," the golden-eyed boy shouted back.

"Michael," the voice grumbled back, but even Dean could tell that it had long since been a lost cause.

"And you've brought someone with you!" Gabriel smiled, pulling Cas into a bone-crushing hug that forced the duffel bag to slip out of his fingers.  He scrutinized Dean over  Cas's  shoulder, his golden eyes raking up and down until he seemed satisfied and Dean felt horribly uncomfortable in his fading Stones shirt and ratty jeans.  Then Gabriel's eyes jumped to Sam, who was standing behind his brother and felt three times as uncomfortable before anyone had even laid an eye on him.  "Two someones .  Cassie, you've turned into quite the player."

Cas's shoulders sagged as he rolled his eyes.  "Shut up, Gabriel.  This is Dean, my..." he coughed, "and his brother, Sam."

Dean knew that he was going to say roommate, and that didn't quite cover it anymore but they had never had the chance to talk about it properly.

"Dean-o," Gabriel practically sang as he pulled Dean into a very unexpected hug.  He smelled like cupcakes and chocolate chip cookies and something else that was all too overwhelmingly sweet.  Then pulled away and looked Dean straight in the eyes, which was unnerving by itself, before whispering, "You be good to my baby brother."

Dean couldn't tell who blushed harder, him or Cas.

"And Sammy," he proceeded to pull Sam into a suffocating hug which his little brother barely recovering before furrowing his brow.

"You don't get to call me that."

"Whatever you say, Jolly Green."

Sam rolled his eyes, but seemed willing to accept that over 'Sammy.'  

"Seriously, kid, what are they feeding you?  Steroids?" 

The kid shot him a record-worthy bitch face before a timer went off in the apartment and Gabriel whirled around.  "That'll be the pie!"

Dean's eyebrows shot up at the word and his mouth watered slightly.  They hadn't eaten since the world's largest Yogi bear and that seemed like lifetimes ago.  

The three of them followed Gabriel inside, discarding their duffel bags on the black leather sofa.  Though he had to admit that he had a bit of tunnel vision when it came to pie (especially apple pie, and unless his olfactory senses were failing him, then this was apple pie) he managed to take in a bit of the first room they were in.  Dark hardwood flooring and dark furniture, which contrasted with the white walls and large white rug spread in the center of the room.  The place had to have cost a fortune (what did Cas say Michael did?) but that was not currently the matter on hand.  

The living room was nothing compared to the kitchen though, which seemed to be state of the art.  As well as the place of convergence.  Leaning against the counter, next to a stereo that was blasting Blue Oyster Cult's Burning for You, clad in a form-fitting red t-shirt with a beer in hand, was a dark-haired man with a relaxed smile on his face.  He reminded Dean of Cas -- more than Gabriel did, at least -- and he had to admit that good looks seemed to run in the family.  On the far side of the room was two girls with black hair, one had it cut just below her ears while the other had grown it down to the middle of her back, who were involved in an animated conversation with a blonde haired boy that couldn't be too much younger than Dean.  And on top of the island counter top were two girls sitting with their legs crossed, goofy smiles on their faces as they fed each other strawberries.  One had red hair that was reminiscent of Charlie's with a soft face and a brilliant smile, and Dean assumed that she was Anna, and the other had light blonde hair and a face that was immensely similar to....

"Jo?!"

The blonde jumped slightly, eyebrows shooting up to her hairline, strawberry forgotten halfway to Anna's mouth.  She glanced over to the doorway.

"Dean?  Sam?"

"The hell are you doing here?" Dean asked, as she jumped off the counter and straight into his arms for a long overdue hug.  He hadn't seen Jo since they were kids -- the last time they were in Sioux Falls with Bobby, Ellen and Jo had taken a short trip to visit William Harvelle where he was buried in Montana.  

Even though she felt tiny and fragile in Dean's arms, if he remembered correctly (which he did, thank you very much) then Jo could throw one hell of a right hook despite that.  

She stood up on her tip toes, with her arms thrown around Dean's neck.  "Don't tell my mom, she doesn't know yet," she whispered, her lips brushing his ear.  His confusion must have been evident on his face because when she pulled away she rubbed at the back of her neck where Dean remembered there was a tattoo just below her hairline of a flower that was redolent of traditional henna designs.  And he would bet that there was a matching one on the back of Anna's neck too.

There was a twinge in the center of his chest and his heart ached, as it did whenever he met someone that was happily along with their soul mate.  But he didn't let any of it show on his face, and instead smiled for Jo.  She deserved it.  The kid was practically like his sister and if he couldn't be happy for her then he couldn't be happy for anyone. 

 "Don't worry about it, Harvelle."  He replied, casting his eyes briefly in Cas's direction.  "Your secret's safe with me."

Jo raised her eyebrows slightly in question and Dean answered with an almost imperceptible shake of his head.  She nodded marginally before gathering Sam up in a hug.  The small, quick exchange had gone unnoticed by the rest of the gathering.

"Damn, Samantha," Jo said as she pulled away.  "You're taller than I am now."

Sam grumbled slightly at the nickname but Dean knew that he was internally relieved that there was someone here that he knew now besides Dean and Cas.

Dean raised his eyebrows as Burning for You drew to a close, replaced by Free Falling.  "Tom Petty, really?"

"Shut up, Dean-o.  This is my song," Gabriel shouted, dropping a pie gracelessly onto the island.  It was definitely apple and he had to restrain himself from grabbing a fork and digging in then and there.  

" _She's a good girl, crazy about Elvis_ ," Gabe belted out, horribly off-key, as he returned the oven mitts to a drawer.  Dean had to admit that there was a certain light-hearted element to the song, especially the chorus, that made the song enjoyable but there was a specific mood for it.  One that Gabe was definitely in as he continued to howl out the lyrics.  " _And it's a long day, livin'_ _in Reseda_. "

Dean cracked a smile at his purposefully bad singing while the dark-haired man by the counter nearly doubled over in laughter.

"You know Ellen won't mind, right?" he gently reminded Jo, when she walked past him, their shoulders brushing.  "That Anna's a girl."

She stopped;  avoiding his eyes , instead favoring the floor with her chocolate brown gaze that Dean had been sure he was in love with when he was a boy .  "I know.  It's just...when I had called her to say that I'd found my mate she'd said that I should bring  _him_  around soon.  It didn't occur to her that...you know."

He nodded.  "Yeah, I know."

"And I didn't know how to break it to her over the phone so I'd let it go.  And if I tell her now I would feel like she'll think I've been lying to her for two months."

"She'll be fine with it," Dean promised, smiling down at her.

"I hope so," Jo murmured, glancing at Anna, a smile breaking out on her face.

"Are you going to introduce me to your friends, Castiel?"

Dean turned his head at the sound a deep voice that he didn't recognize.  The dark haired man that had been relaxed against the counter top had moved around to the other side of the kitchen while Dean had been talking with Jo.  

"Of course," Cas smiled, as the man pulled him into a one-armed hug.  "Michael, this is Dean and his brother Sam.  Dean, Sam; this is Michael."

"Nice to meet you," Dean said, holding his hand out which Cas's older brother shook with a warm smile.  "Cas has told me about you."

"Only good things I hope," he said, offering his hand to Sam.  The fifteen year old shook it enthusiastically, grinning from ear to ear.  Even though the kid was as tall, or taller, than most of the adults that Dean knew most people treated him like a little boy, and Sam absolutely loathed it.  With one small gesture, Michael was already on Sam's good side for a long, long while.

"Well it's not like I would tell him about last year's New Year's Eve party before he'd met you," Cas said with a smirk, and a blush crept onto his older brother's face. 

"I, um...well, I uh...another beer," Michael stuttered, making his clumsy escape, and in that moment Dean became determined to find out what had happened at last year's New Year's Eve party someday.

Cas smiled as his brother slipped around Gabriel, who was now enthusiastically dancing to Sweet Child O' Mine accompanied by a rather impressive air guitar solo , to grab another beer from the stainless steel refrigerator .  

"Over there is Luci,"  Cas  pointed to the girl with short, black hair that was now flaunting a playful smirk on her lips, "and Hael," the girl with long black hair and blue eyes that were evidence that she was related to Cas, although Dean easily admitted that, while they were gorgeous, they weren't nearly as breathtaking as her brother's, "and I have no idea who the boy is.  I gather that the two of you have already met Jo," who was now leaning against the island, facing away from them and smiling up at the red head, who had her legs wrapped around Jo's waist , "I met her on Skype a few weeks back.  And that is my sister, Anna.  Everyone else must be upstairs, but that's probably for the best.  It can get crowded in here. "  

Dean smiled at the group in the kitchen; another soccer ball flying overhead, rebounding on the cabinets before falling to the floor followed by Michael yelling Gabriel's name.  Their small argument;  Michael reprimanding his younger brother for indoor soccer  _"for the ninth time in the past thirty minutes, dammit Gabriel"_   followed by Gabe defending his actions, rather poorly; was accompanied by the small bouts of laughter from Anna and Jo along with the voices and occasional snigger from the conversation held by the two girls and the blonde boy in the corner.  For a moment, Dean thought of the various Christmases that him and Sam had spent in the dingy motels and, once they'd returned to Lawrence, the darkened living room that lacked a tree and presents and any noise, as John always had a terrible hangover.  And he decided that he liked the Cas's family very, very much.


	9. IX

 

Dean paused in front of the bathroom mirror, setting his toothbrush next to the ceramic basin.  Shadows had crept under his green eyes, a product of his recently completed finals and the sleep he had denied himself on the way to New York, and his skin had retained an unfamiliar pallor, making his freckles more pronounced and replacing the usual light tan.  There was nothing special about him.  Green eyes, dirty blonde hair, freckles.  _Less than special._   No tattoo.  

And then there was Cas.  Electric blue eyes that could stop anyone in their tracks with a mere glance.  A smile that could give Dean a heart attack and a laugh that could do worse damage.  Charisma that had little old ladies wrapped around his finger with a quirk of his plush lips and men and women alike offering a place in their bed for a night or maybe two.  Idiosyncrasies that had Dean smiling to himself behind closed doors.  And those wings that wound down his back, tracing a physique that Adonis would be jealous of.  

And Dean felt so small.  Cas was like the angels that his family had been named for.  An otherworldly, unstoppable force to be reckoned with, twisting fate as he pleased with destiny eager to cater to his desires, and Dean was a child caught in a hurricane.  He'd never stood a chance.

He could never compete with someone that was worthy to be Castiel's soul mate.  Castiel would find the one with identical wings carved into their back and he would leave Dean alone, as he should be.  As he was destined to be.  

With a sigh he shut off the bathroom light and padded down the hallway, his footsteps silent on the hardwood floor.  Part of him, the part that was all relaxed smiles and had a aura of carelessness, told him to enjoy Cas while he was still here.  It would be stupid to deny himself the luxury of indulging himself in someone so ethereal even if he knew it wasn't going to last.  Hell, that made it that much more important.  He had a certain amount of time and it would be monumentally inane to ignore it while he could still have it.  But another part of him, the much more logical part, told him to run while he could still escape with a partially intact heart instead of waiting it out and walking away with a shattered mess inside his rib cage.  

He paused, shoving his thoughts to the back of his mind, before opening up the door to Cas's bedroom.  

Despite the melancholic sense that had buried itself deep into his psyche, he couldn't help but to smile.  The room held so much evidence of Cas that he couldn't imagine the room belonging to anyone else.  Posters of various bands that Dean had never heard before -- The Kooks, Arctic Monkeys, Florence and the Machine, The Naked and Famous; just to name a few -- adorned the walls, all hung slightly crooked and off center.  He could see Cas balancing on the night stand or dresser to tack them up, stepping back and realizing that they weren't hung straight before deciding that it wasn't worth the effort to fix it.  The bed was a wreck already, an ocean of blankets and comforters, with half of the sheets hanging off the mattress and trailing across the floor.  A bookcase with so many novels shoved onto it that it looked like the shelves were going to cave in at any given moment.  A record player balanced on the edge of a desk even though Dean couldn't remember the last time he'd seen someone use a record (except he could, with her golden hair and magical smiles and gentle hands, but he wouldn't think of that).  There was a lamp with a burgundy scarf slung over the shade and the closet was cracked open to reveal an assortment of sweaters and a messy floor.  

And Cas had already burrowed into his mess of covers with just the top of his head visible, a shock of dark hair, tanned skin, and bright blue eyes against the light sheets.

"Hey," he mumbled, mouth obstructed by the cotton.

Dean's lips quirked up into a broader smile in spite of his previous mood.  "Hey."

"You took your time brushing your teeth."

"Yeah."

"I was afraid that you'd run off on me."

Dean sighed theatrically.  "I thought about it.  You know, could've gone to apartments of any one of the thousands of cute boys that I know in New York City, but I decided that I'd just settle for you."

Even though he couldn't see Cas's lips he knew he was smiling, the skin around his eyes gathering and his eyes sparkling.  "Well I'm glad you did.  Now get into the bed and turn off the light."

Dean raised an eyebrow.  "Wow, Cas.  I don't even think you've bought me dinner yet."

"False.  I bought the burgers in Wilmot."

"Well, in that case I owe you my eternal servitude," he replied, hitting the light switch and jumping, quite literally, into the bed.  

He was still blinking, eyes stretched abnormally wide, as he tried to adjust to the sudden darkness when Cas's hands snaked around his neck and he mumbled, "Yes, you do," before pressing his lips against Dean's.  

Dean froze for a moment --  _ this wasn't going to last, Cas_ _was going to leave him_  just like everyone else , _it was too good to last, he was going to be alone,_ _Cas  was going to fall in love with someone else, desperately in love _ with someone else,  _someone that was not_   him -- before leaning into the kiss, hands blindly fumbling with the sheets to get closer to Cas .  

"C'mere," Cas murmured against his lips, shoving some of the covers aside and Dean's hands made contact with bare skin.  Oh God, he was shirtless.  

He slid his hands around to Cas's back, pulling him closer and slipping his tongue into Cas's mouth.  Before he even registered it, he was on his back with Cas towering over him -- no more than a silhouette with his disheveled hair in all of its glory in the darkness.  It was reminiscent of the first time they did this and, fuck, if Dean didn't want to give into the part of him that said to just go for it while he could still have it and disregard any uncertainties.

Cas leaned back down, his fingers twisting into Dean's short hair.  Dean pushed up, assaulting his lips because he would be damned if he didn't take advantage of this right now, while he had him.  But Cas had other ideas, and thrust Dean back down into the mattress.  

Instead of fighting against Cas (as if he wanted to), he offered his thigh up between Cas's leg and for a brief moment he seemed grateful for the friction but again, had other ideas, and shoved Dean's leg back to dip his hips into Dean's pelvis instead.  He whimpered into Cas's mouth, arching up without a thought, desperate for more of the movement.  His groin was on fire and his heart was drumming an irregular, harsh beat against his chest.

And Cas offered it up gladly, rolling his hips in a pattern that Dean couldn't be bothered to keep track of, already preoccupied.  Cas pulling his head back --  tugging on his hair hard enough that the pleasure was mixing the slight pain and it was  _perfect_   \-- and exposing his neck, and Cas's lips trailed down from his mouth to his jaw to his throat.  And he couldn't do anything besides try to breathe as teeth scraped across the sensitive skin.  

"God, Dean, you have no idea -- " he gasped out; pausing to place his mouth against Dean's skin, sucking along his collarbone, his teeth grinding lightly against the bone, " -- how long I've wanted -- " his lips found their way back to Dean's, pressing a chaste kiss, " --  _ you _ ."

_ It won't last forever. _

_ He'll leave. _

_ You'll be alone. _

_ You'll always be alone. _

_ No one wants you. _

_ No one will  ever  want you. _

"Please don't say that," Dean whispered against his skin.

"Why not? It's the truth ?"

Cas leaned in before he could reply, his tongue gliding across the inside of Dean's lips, and his hips rolling down, granting his hard on much needed pressure.  It was a few moments before he could remember how to say anything.

"Because...it won't always be the truth."

Cas's movements slowed to a stop and while a large part of his mind, as well as his crotch, was screaming at him to pick up where Cas left off, a smaller voice in the back of his head was whispering thanks.  If he could end this now, he could save himself the heartbreak later on down the road when a soul mate entered the picture.

"You don't know that," he whispered, a frown tugging at the corner of his lips and his brows scrunching together, a crease forming between them.

"But I do.  You're going to leave.  They always do."  He had managed to keep his voice steady until the very last sentence;  the words betraying him, cracking on the way out and Dean could feel his eyes fill up with tears.

And it was stupid.  He should be accustomed to this by now.  He'd only known that he was going to spend his life alone for nineteen fucking years now.  He shouldn't still get upset about it.

But Cas didn't laugh at him or push him away or admit that he was just having his fun with Dean until he found his soul mate.  On the contrary, he drifted in slowly, almost hesitantly, before pressing soft kiss to Dean's lips.  But he didn't kiss back.  He didn't want to.  He did.  He couldn't.  He couldn't let himself get any more attached to Cas than he was now.  

And when tears escaped his eyes, the moisture trailing down his face and into his hair, Cas pretended not to notice, kissing Dean against despite the lack of response.  Slowly, he lowered himself onto the bed next to Dean, his lips not leaving his skin at any point in time.

"I don't want to leave, Dean."  He murmured, wrapping his arms around him as he pressed a kiss into the shell of his ear.

"But you will."

"I don't want to leave, so I won't."

"But -- "

Cas cut off his protest with another kiss.  "Remember when I told you that I don't believe in soul mates?"

He nodded, and though he wasn't sure if Cas could even see him, he continued.

"I suppose that was a bit of a lie.  I do believe in soul mates but I don't believe that I will find them just because we both have the same tattoo on our backs.  I believe that I should get the opportunity to choose my own soul mate and I would like for you to give me a chance, at the very least."

"But you haven't met your soul mate yet.  And you will.  And you'll change your mind because they'll be perfect for you."

Cas smiled.  And for a moment, Dean was slightly insulted.  How could he have the audacity to smile at a time like this?

"And I suppose that we'll ride off into the sunset with our matching tattoos, yes?"

Dean frowned, despite the rather ridiculous picture that his mind supplied of Cas and a mystery man bareback on two horses  riding into a Western-style sunset, and nodded.  

"The only problem with that is that there is no one with a tattoo that matches mine."

The gears in his mind ground to halt.  For a brief moment, hope flickered in his chest -- that Cas was soul mate-less just like him -- but he crushed it.  Cas couldn't know that for sure.  There were seven billion people in the world, and one of them had a pair of wings on their back, that was how things worked, and Cas couldn't dispute that if he wanted to.  A small voice that was equal parts hope equal parts sadism, supplied the idea that perhaps Cas had already met his soul mate but they had died.  He crushed that too.  He was selfish, there was no doubt about that, but he wouldn't wish for the death of anyone's soul mate.  There was pain associated with that that he could only begin to imagine and it was pain  that he undeniably wouldn't want someone like Cas to experience.  Even if it meant that Cas would be his as long as he would have him.

"Mine's altered."

"That's illegal."  But even as Dean said it, he knew that there were plenty of things out there that were illegal but still widely practiced.  Tattoos that were administered by another human were strictly forbidden but that didn't stop numerous underground tattoo parlors  to operate in nearly every city.

Cas laughed softly.  "A lot of things are illegal, Dean."

"When did you do it?"

"When I was fifteen.  Gabriel took me.  I had to beg him for three straight weeks."

Dean chuckled.  "And here I thought that you were corruptible innocence when we went camping at the beginning of the semester.  You were breaking laws on a whole 'nother level long before we ever came along."

The thought of the camping trip brought up the memories of Cas leaning into Balthazar's touch next to fire and of Cas crawling into the back of Benny's truck covered in a scent that was definitely not his own.  His mouth tasted bitter.   But Dean forced the images away.  Balthazar didn't mean anything.  Just like the various people that Dean had shared a bed with didn't mean anything.  

"What was it originally?"  Thinking about that was easier than Cas and Balthazar, even though it shouldn't have been.  He couldn't imagine anything other than the massive design that encompassed his back adorning the skin.  

Cas pressed his lips together briefly.  "The wings of a fallen angel, more than anything else.  The top is the same as it always was, but they broke off about mid-back.  There were a few feathers that fell from there, but nothing else.  They weren't as filled out as they are now, either.  Frayed and unkempt.  I never really did like them."

Dean would've liked them then, but he liked them more now.  "Do you like them now?"

"Yeah.  I do."

"And what about your soul mate?  They've been waiting their whole life for you and you just crush them?"

Cas  shrugged.  "I'll cross that bridge when I get to it."

Dean chuckled and glanced up at Cas, his blue eyes shining in the light that leaked through the crack under the door.  And, fuck, he was empyrean.  

"You're wonderful," he heard himself murmur.

"Yeah?" Cas asked, raising his eyebrows slightly.

"Yeah.  I like you a lot."

He smiled.  "I should hope so because that would make this whole thing embarrassing for me."

He leaned over, wrapping his arms around Dean, and kissing him enthusiastically.  Dean smiled against his lips, returning it with equal vigor.

 

* * *

 

 

Dean became aware  of two things as he reached  the border between unconsciousness and wakefulness.  The first was a boisterous voice shouting something that he couldn't quite decipher in his current state.  The second ensued a split second after the first, a body crashing into the mattress next to him, successfully jolting him completely into the world of living.  

"What on earth, Gabriel?"  Cas's deep voice sounded somewhere nearby, hoarse from disuse.

"I was just letting you two love birds know that I made  _pancakes_ ," Gabriel said in a sing-song voice.

"And are these pancakes just for you?  Or were you planning on sharing with the rest of the family?"

Cas's brother mocked looking offended.  "How could you say that, Cassie?  I've never done that before."

"Really?  Because I have a few very clear memories that of that happening on several occasions and I have six witnesses for each time."

"Yeah, yeah.  But this isn't like those times.  I made pancakes for all, so you two'd better get up before Michael eats them all."

"More like, before  _you_  eat them all."

"I would be offended if that wasn't true. "

"Shut up and leave my room," Cas grumbled, throwing a pillow at Gabriel's head.  

"As long as you come down for breakfast," his brother laughed, tossing the pillow to the floor before jumping off the bed.

"Are we going down for breakfast?" Dean asked as Cas burrowed back into the covers.

"Only if he made coffee."

"I made coffee," Gabriel sang, peeking back into the bedroom.

"Gabriel! I said  _leave _ !"

"Yeah, yeah, I’m going cranky-pants."

Cas sank even further into the pillows, a feat Dean hadn't thought possible, mumbling something that sounded suspiciously close to "Asshole."  But with the  incentive  of coffee waiting downstairs it didn't take more than five minutes to drag himself downstairs with Dean on his tail.

In the morning light, Dean took the opportunity to inspect the wings that embraced Cas's back, a sight he usually avoided despite their dignified grace.  But even with the improved lighting he couldn't see where the original tattoo ended and the cover-up began.

The kitchen was already bustling with activity and thick with the scent of blueberry pancakes and maple syrup.  The eldest Collins seemed to share Cas's disdain of mornings and had secluded himself in the corner with the coffee machine and a mug , a scowl distorting his features.  The youngest didn't need much persuasion to leave Dean and join him.  Gabriel was manning the stove, a spatula in hand as he slid a plate of fresh pancakes to a dark skinned woman that Dean didn't recognize from the faces last night.  Despite everyone else still being clad in their pajamas (or half their pajamas in the case of Cas, who was only wearing sweat pants, and Jo and Anna, who were wearing over-sized t-shirts), the woman was elegantly done up already with her hair twisted into a French braid and immaculate make up decorating her features.  Sam was sitting at the island, pancakes already have devoured, talking with the blonde boy from last night and a brunette girl with chocolate brown eyes and a gentle smile.  

"Dean-o!  You managed to get Cassie out of bed!"

"He didn't manage to do anything, Gabriel.  I'm a grown man.  I do it myself."

"Mhm, I'm sure you do." He shot back before turning to Dean again.  "Do you want blueberry or cinnamon?"

"Surprise me."

Gabe tossed the spatula into the air, whirling back around to face the eight burner, stainless steel stove that was as expensive as everything else in the apartment.  Dean made his way across the kitchen, weaving between various bodies, before sitting down next to his brother.  He understood what Cas meant about it getting crowded in here sometimes.  He didn't think there was an inch of floor space visible between the bodies of the Collins family and their guests.  

"Morning, Sammy."

"Morning, Dean!"

"You sleep alright?"

"Yeah.  Did you?"  But as soon as the words left his mouth his face twisted and he frowned, speaking again before Dean could reply.  "Have you met Adam and Madison?"

"Not yet."  He leaned forward a bit, flashing a charming smile at the two.  

"Adam Milligan," the boy offered as the girl returned his smile.  "I came here with Luci."

"Madison Vaugier.  I work for Gabriel."

"Dean Winchester.  Sammy -- "

" _Sam_."

" -- and I came with Cas."

One of Madison's eyebrows arched up delicately, her eyes flicking between him and Cas.  "Are you two...?"

Dean fought back a blush as he nodded.  "Are you and Gabriel...?"

She laughed, a tender peal that was barely heard over the commotion in the kitchen.  "No.  I've worked in Gabriel's coffee shop for the past four years while I've been going to college.  He knows that I don't have the money to spend Christmas with my family so he's always invited me back here with him instead of spending the holidays alone. But we've never dated."

"Not that I haven't tried," Gabe slipped up to the island next to Dean, setting a plate of pancakes in front of him, and winking at Madison, earning another laugh.  

"Are you and Luci a couple?" Sam asked, in a seemingly nonchalant fashion but after spending fifteen years with the kid, Dean knew better.

Adam shook his head.  "Sometimes, but we haven't been for a while."

Behind his back a smile flitted across Madison's face that said more than the scowl that had contorted Adam's features when Gabriel drew a laugh out of the brunette.  

Sam nodded in a manner that was forced to appear so casual that Dean couldn't believe that no one but him could tell.

"She's too old for you, Sam," he commented, taking a bite of the golden pancake.  A bit too sweet, but other than that it was perfection.

Sam retained the dignity to appear affronted.  "What?  I never said -- "

"Yeah, but I can tell." 

He huffed a breath and muttered, "Don't talk when your mouth is full."

Both Adam and Madison had affectionate smiles plastered on their faces, and Adam was hardly holding back laughter at the idea of Sam having a crush on Luci.  It wasn't just the age difference that set Dean on edge, but there was something serpentine about her beneath the carefree and honey-sweet smiles that didn't leave him at much of a doubt about which angel she was (appropriately) named after.  

"So, Dean, Sam tells me that he wants to be a lawyer," Madison commented and Dean had never seen his little brother look so thankful for a change of topics.

"Yeah," he smiled.  "He'll make a damn good one too.  The kid could talk me into anything."

"Madison's going to school to be a lawyer!" Sam interjected before Dean could continue on about his brother's persuasion skills.  Not that the kid could use his big brown eyes in court.

"Oh, where are you going?"

"Fordham University."

"Third best law school in New York," Sam said.

Madison blushed as Adam and Dean both let out a low whistle.  

"You didn't say that, Maddie," Adam looked over his shoulder at her.

"It didn't seem important."

"It sounds important."

Dean turned his attention back to his pancakes, letting Adam and Madison have the conversation to themselves.  Either Sam had picked up on the same thing that he did or he was decidedly being uncharacteristically unfriendly because he didn't interject there and turned his attention to his brother instead.

"So did you and Cas have a good time last night?"

Dean glanced over at Cas, who was still sitting on the counter next to Michael, both gripping their coffee mugs with matching glares on their faces.  Dean couldn't stop the smile.  

"Yeah," he replied before noting the smirk and arched eyebrows his brother was brandishing.  "Oh sick, Sam!  Not like that!"

Sam laughed, hazel eyes sparkling.  "I'm not the one doing anything."

"You would if Luci gave you the chance," Dean muttered, low enough for only his brother to hear.  

"I hate you."

"No, you don’t."

"Yeah I do."

"Mhm."

 

* * *

Dean thought of what it was like growing up with John Winchester as Castiel dragged him through the streets of his bustling city, a brilliant smile lighting up his face.   With John, he could never be too careful.  Girls were one thing, but if he let his father catch him with a boy...he didn't want to think of the consequences.  John just didn't think it was  _right_ , as he had made painfully clear every time they had passed a gay couple in public.  Dean would duck his head, blushing furiously and sick with embarrassment,  whenever it was said loud enough for the couple to hear and all he could think about was how it didn't feel  _wrong_.  It had felt the same liking Aaron as it had liking Pamela.  But John would have seen it as his parental duty to 'beat the gay out of him,'  as it was so kindly phrased, no doubt about that.  

Here they were though, hands latched, rushing down the sidewalk and not a soul gave them a second glance.  

There was something intimate and private about living in a place where so many lives overlapped.  After a while, it was too much to notice every person you passed in the streets and people took care of themselves.  Minded their own business, didn't stick their nose where it wasn't wanted.  

And Dean loved it in a way that he had never loved the backside motels and small, off-the-map towns.  He loved being able to walk down the road with Cas and not have strangers' gazes lingering.  He loved being able to go somewhere and not feel obligated to smile at every person that he passed on the sidewalk.  He loved the crowds and the noise and the thick air and even though sometimes he felt like his heart was beating too fast and his throat was constricting he couldn't keep the smile off his face.  He loved being in the midst of so many lives overlapping at once.

When he had first read The Great Gatsby in high school he had not understood what Jordan Baker had meant when she commented that she loved large parties because of the intimacy, that at small parties there was never any privacy.  He couldn't grasp how somewhere that was overflowing with people could be considered intimate when a word like that had always been reserved for activities including limited number of people.  Now, though, he finally understood what she meant.  The less people there are, the less privacy there is.  The small towns he had known all his life, the small parties that Jordan had attended, were like being in a fish bowl with observers on all side.  Everyone knew everyone and everyone knew everything about everyone.  In a city this big, though, he could imagine never seeing the same person twice unless it was planned.  He could walk down the  street  with whomever he wanted, doing whatever he wanted, and not be scrutinized.

And even though Bobby's salvage yard, empty with the exception of the skeletons of once coveted cars, and the Roadhouse, smoky and sketchy and  safe , and the motels with outdated wallpaper where he and Sam would laugh at cartoons would all hold a special place in his heart.  He wouldn't want to spend the rest of his life there.  But somewhere like here, somewhere like New York City, he could imagine living in.

He could imagine moving to an apartment with Cas.  Something small, not extravagant like Michael's place.  After all, the combined income of a writer and an artist couldn't be expected to allow a lot of room for luxury.  But that would be okay.  And Cas would drag him down the street like he was now, fingers intertwined with his own and a contagious smile parting his lips and his laughter filling the cacophonous air.

Reality came crashing down all at once though, stealing the smile off his face and the air from his lungs.  That wasn't going to happen.  It couldn't.  Cas had a soul mate, he didn't.  And even though Cas could preach all he wanted about wanting to make his on decisions Dean knew that he would feel different once he met his mate.  That was how went.  Relationships prior to the one forged with your soul mate weren't meant to be permanent .  

"Dean, are you alright?"

Shit.  He forced a smile back onto his face.  "Yeah, Cas.  We almost there?"

Cas pressed his lips together and Dean mourned the loss of his smile.  "Yeah."

Maybe once Cas met his soul mate, Dean would move to a big city still.  After all, in a city of eight million no one looks twice at someone who is unmarked.  Destined for solitude.  If one person found out in a place this populated, there wouldn't be whispers behind his back and unwanted attention from people that had no business in his life.  It would be safe.

"We're here!" Cas sang.  They stood in front of a small store front that advertised antiques  on  a sign that could have been replaced a few years ago but wasn't completely dilapidated.  There was nothing flashy about it, nothing special; if Cas hadn't brought him specifically to this store, Dean's eyes would have slid right past it.

"An antiques store?"

"No.  Well, yes.  Kinda.  But we're not here for antiques."

"What are we here for then?"

Cas licked his lips, his shoulders sagging slightly and Dean could see the confidence seeping out of him.  "You don't have to if you don't want to.  I should have said something earlier, but -- well, you see I, uh, I wanted it to be a surprise, you understand?  But I don't want to force it or anything because you're fine, you're perfect -- hell, I -- "

"Cas, man! Just tell me what it is!"

"It's well -- this place is, uh," Dean could feel his fingers twitching and his hand shaking slightly.  His voice lowered to a whisper.  "This is where I got my wings finished and, you see, I thought that while we were in town and I know this guy, and I trust him, it might be something -- I'm not saying there's something wrong with being unmarked but I know how you avoid looking at other's tattoos and I thought maybe you would want one of your own.  I know it wouldn't equate a soul mate or change anything, but I thought it would be nice...If you want, only if you want..."

Dean could feel his heart stutter in his chest and dammit, he was not going to cry about this.  He couldn't get emotional over this.  He also couldn't believe that he had never thought of doing this before now.  It wouldn't give him a soul mate but it would be something.  He could wear swim trunks like the rest of his friends at the pool.   He could change in the same room as the other guys instead of slipping into a bathroom or closet.  Everyone would assume that he had a soul mate, there wouldn't be any of the questions that he'd feared all his life.

"Dean, can you say something?"  Cas's voice was deep and he glanced up at Dean through his eyelashes.  "I didn't mean to offend y -- "

"No, Cas, it's fine," he whispered, squeezing Cas's fingers.  "It's perfect, actually."

A smile lit up his features and Dean would never admit to anyone that the sight made his heart race and his palms sweat.  There was something ethereal and intangible about Cas.  It was as if he was on another level and Dean would never quite comprehend him, but he could have the privilege of having his breath taken away.

"But I don't know what to get."

"That's okay.  Andy has a whole bunch of sketches and ideas, and if you still don't know what you want or you don't like any of them, we can always come back later."

Dean couldn't help but to smile as Cas clutched his hand tighter and dragged him through the doorway into the tattoo- parlor-antique-shop.  For a brief moment, he let himself think of the impossible, of what it would be like to live the rest of his life with Cas.  And fuck, it was fantastic and unattainable in every way imaginable.  But he thanked whatever God there was for the time that he was allowed with Castiel Collins.


	10. X

Castiel watched as Dean trailed his fingers over the display cases, peering in at the rubbish antiques that Andy used as a cover for his actual business.  He knew he had had an adequate amount of time to adjust to being more than just Dean Winchester's roommate but he still couldn't fathom how it had happened.  Even though he had never met two people who  were the same, there was something extraordinarily different about Dean.  He was defiant and headstrong but he was gentle and kind.  Sometimes he disappeared so far into his headspace that  Castiel  was afraid he wouldn't get him back but his laughter was contagious and filled the interior of the car that he loved so much with ease.   He was a force of nature that Castiel couldn't put into words.  It wouldn't surprise him to discover that this boy with sparkling green eyes was the one to fill the oceans and shape the mountains.

Castiel had discovered a long time ago that he wasn't as taken with the idea of a soul mate as he should have been.  When everyone else at his school was giggling and comparing tattoos and dreaming about what their mate would be like, Castiel was getting his tattoo altered.  If he was going to spend the rest of his life with someone then it was going to be because he chose to, not because they both had the same ink. But, until Dean Winchester, he had never met someone that he knew he could love.

It had scared him, at first, and he had ran from it.  He had tried to return to the comfort zone he had created for himself in high school -- find an attractive stranger and fuck them.  Balthazar seemed to fit the bill, so he had gone for it.  But it wasn't the same as it had been.  It wasn't fun anymore.  All the while, he could only think of what Dean would have looked like writhing beneath him, what it would have looked like to have green eyes widening as an orgasm hit instead of steel-blue, what his name would have sounded like on Dean's lips.

But, standing here now, where he could reach out and hold Dean's hand in his own without meeting any resistance, where he could press his lips to Dean's whenever he please, he couldn't believe that it had taken him so long to gather up the courage to kiss him for the first time.  The wait had been well worth it, though.

"Here they are," Andy announced, jerking Castiel out his thoughts, carrying a box out of the back room.  He set it on the counter and began to pull out pages and pages of prints.  "You go ahead and look through them.  Take your time, I'll be in the back room."

"You don't have to choose today if you don't want to," Castiel said, as Dean began to shift through the pages, pausing briefly on one design -- a star inscribed in a flaming ring -- before moving on.

"I want to though," Dean said eagerly, green eyes bright though he didn't take them away from the prints.  He paused on another design;  this one circled around the rib cage, a line of some ancient language for each rib.  But again, he moved on, seeming to lose interest in it.

Castiel knew what tattoo he wanted to see inked on to Dean permanently but he didn't want to force something on Dean.  And he was afraid that, if he suggested it, Dean would either shoot the idea down mercilessly or get it done, not because he wanted it, but because he wouldn't want to hurt Castiel's feelings.

Dean stopped to inspect a print of a birdcage with the door hanging open, but he turned past it.  Castiel was willing to wait patiently for Dean to choose one, but the only problem was he was three fourths of the way through the last binder and he still couldn't seem to find one that struck his fancy.

He sighed when he reached the end and Castiel held his breath for the verdict.  It didn't seem like he had found one that pleased him, which meant they would probably leave right now.  And that was okay, he wouldn't want to make Dean feel like he was obligated to get one, but he would be horribly embarrassed about even suggesting the idea.

"I can't choose one," Dean pouted.  He was actually  _pouting_ , his lips turned down into a frown, and it was terribly endearing.  "I have it narrowed down to three, but..."

Castiel opted for silence, allowing Dean to take his time to finish his sentence.

"Could you choose for me?  I like all three of them, but I know this is a big decision and I want to make the right one, you know?"

"Of course, Dean."

A smile broke out on his face.  And God, Castiel would do almost anything to see that smile.  He would walk to the end of the earth for this boy.  "Okay, so these are the three that I like."

He spread out the prints that Castiel had seen him pause on.  He could guess that Dean's fondness of  the birdcage was  due to its resemblance of print of Kurt Vonnegut's, but he had no idea what the value of the other two would be to him.  

He could imagine each tattoo on Dean and as much as he liked each one, he knew that this was probably his only opportunity to suggest what he would actually like to see drawn onto his freckled back.  

_ It's now or never.   _

He thought of the last time that he had taken a chance.  Though, by that time he was pretty sure that Dean liked him back (how much, he wasn't sure), he still had to beat himself into leaning across that motel bed and kissing him for the first time.  

Last time had turned out pretty well, if he did say so himself, and maybe his luck would hold out.

"Actually...."

He couldn't do it.  He couldn't get the words out.

"Actually what?"

He inhaled deeply.  "Actually, I was wondering -- hoping, perhaps -- if you would be interested in getting a tattoo like mine?"  He let the words out in one single breathe and avoided looking Dean in the eyes, his heart twisting nervously in his chest .

When he did though, he knew he hadn't made a mistake.  The boy's green eyes had lit up and a smile unlike any of the previous ones that Castiel had seen light up his face.  

"I wanted to -- I was afraid that you -- I thought you might not like that, but I would love that.  Yes, please. Yes."

"I would love that, Dean."

Dean had always been the one to express his doubts about Castiel staying with him, but he wasn't the only with doubts.  Castiel knew he was nothing special -- he was unruly and disobedient, but not enough that his behavior was noteworthy in comparison to Luci's or Gabriel's, he inadequate when it came to small talk, and he liked sex maybe a bit too much -- and, doubtlessly, someday Dean would come to his sense and realize that.  

When he was fifteen, he wanted his tattoo altered because he didn't want someone else with the same one as him.  He wanted his own.  He wanted it to belong to only him.  But not as much as he wanted to share it with Dean Winchester and Dean Winchester only.

Now, when Dean realized that Castiel was a waste of time there would be something that he could hang onto.  Dean would always have something of Castiel's, a gift that he was more than willing to give.   His tattoo finally meant something more than blatant disobedience and a desire to do things his own way.

"Have you found one you like?" Andy asked, peeking out of the back room.

"Yeah, actually,  uhm ...."

"We were wondering if you would do a copy of mine," Castiel said for him.

"That’s really illegal."

"What you're doing is really illegal, Andy."

The tattoo artist shrugged.  "Yeah, but that's  _really_  illegal.  If I didn't already know that your tattoo was altered, Castiel, I wouldn't agree to it."

That was a resounding _'yes'_   as far as he was concerned.  They followed Andy into the back room, nearly choking on the scent of marijuana.  The room was exactly as Castiel remembered it -- overflowing with illegal paraphernalia and walls adorned with pornographic images of women.  As uncomfortable as he felt with the blatant sexual displays that were intended to sexualize the females in the picture, he put up with it because Andy was one of the best tattoo artists this side of the Mississippi.

"Alright, shirt off, both of you -- I remember your tattoo, Castiel, but not that well."

Castiel peeled his shirt off and he couldn't help himself from sneaking a glance at Dean as he took his off as well.  It was probably immature, but it was worth it.

Behind him, Andy whistled.  "Damn...that is one beautiful monster of a tattoo. "

"Yeah, yeah, Andy," Castiel cut in before Andy could go on singing his own praises.  "We all already know that you're the best artist to ever walk God's green earth."

"No harm in reiterating  the truth."

Dean chuckled.

 

* * *

 

 

"Found it!" Michael shouted, hauling a long box into the living room.

"Fantastic, another year with a fake tree," Rachel muttered from the couch.  It was the longest sentence that she had spoken since Castiel arrived and he doubted that she had said much more in the day prior to his arrival.

"I'll get some decorations!" Gabriel shouted, either ignorant of Rachel's remark or choosing to ignore her foul mood.

"Me too!" Luci shouted, jumping out of her seat and racing after her brother.

Cas groaned and Dean glanced up at him.

"What's wrong?"

"Gabriel and Luci are, to put things lightly, not the best decorators."

Dean chuckled.  "It can't be that bad."

"My junior year, Gabriel completely covered the tree in chocolate covered popcorn.  Nothing like the traditional popcorn strings.  There was more popcorn than there was tree.  Michael had ants in his apartment for weeks.  Last year, he decorated the tree with Luci's tampons so that she would have to go out and buy a new box.  We woke up the next morning to a tree covered in Gabriel's condoms."

Castiel left the story of the time that Gabriel had accidentally set the tree on fire while decorating it for another time.

"I'll never doubt you again."

"Yes, you will."

"It doesn't look like things will be too out of control this year though," he commented as the two troublesome siblings returned downstairs with boxes of traditional ornaments -- green and red bulbs, sparkling snowflakes, and glitter-covered reindeer.

"Just wait."

Fifteen minutes later found the majority of the current residents on the floor surrounded by ornaments, more of them broken than intact, with the exception of Rachel, who had remained cooped up on her perch on the couch with her eyes resolutely focused on the television, and Hael, who was sitting next to her twin but her eyes betrayed her, straying to the rest of her family with an obvious look of longing.  Gabriel had isolated himself slightly and was cutting out paper snowflakes, although Castiel noted that a few of the finished items seemed to be a bit more phallic than anything resembling an actual snowflake but no one had said anything yet.

Luci had been put in charge of finding Christmas music but the CD that was currently playing seemed to have no relation to the current holiday and Castiel was sure that he ad heard more curse words in the past ten minutes than in the past ten weeks.  He could see Dean shooting glances at his younger brother and could only assume that he wanted to clamp his hands over the boy's ears.  Michael had grimaced and sighed when the album began, and Castiel could tell that he regretted ever putting Luci in charge of anything, but he didn't argue.  After living with her and Gabriel for so long one would be worn down to a certain level of complacency.

"Hael, come help me with the snowflakes!" Gabriel called form his work space on the floor, scissors halfway through an object on the paper that was most definitely  not  a snowflake.  Although Gabriel could be insensitive at times, Castiel was thankful that he had the subtly to invite Hael to join him instead of calling her out.

Rachel glared at the back of her twin's head, as if daring her to abandon her on the couch to suffer through her bad mood alone.

"Those aren't snowflakes, Gabriel," Hael commented softly.

Michael's brow furrowed and he glanced over everyone's head to see the pile of phallic cut-outs on the floor, and he let out a long-suffering sight.  Gabriel merely show back a cheeky smile, not at all embarrassed at being caught cutting out dicks instead of snowflakes.

"We can't put those on the tree, Gabriel," the eldest said.

"I don't see why not," Luci replied.

"Yeah, I don't see why not," Gabe repeated.

"It's a part of nature," Luci continued.

"Human anatomy," Gabriel added.

"Well, if Gabe can't be trusted to cut out a few snowflakes, then someone has to," Castiel cut in before they actually started arguing, grabbing a few sheets of paper and the extra pair of scissors off the floor and passing them to Hael, "because I refuse to have a tree without snowflakes."

After returning Hael's gentle smile, he moved back to his place on the floor and continued to untangle a colossal mess of lights.  After their father's abrupt departure, Rachel and Hael had fallen in on themselves.  They left as soon as they could  and only returned for Christmas, and even then only grudgingly.  After a decade of their self-imposed isolation, though, Hael was beginning to come out of her shell and as much as Rachel didn't seem to approve, the rest of the family was more than willing to invite them right back into their rambunctious activities.

Twenty  minutes later, the tree appeared to be finished and everyone was gathered around it as Sam crawled behind to plug in the lights.  Well, almost everyone; Rachel had retreated to her room after her twin has moved to the floor to cut snowflakes next to Gabriel and hadn't returned since.  The tree was covered in an abundance of lights and ornaments as well as a string over paper snowflakes, thanks to Hael, and sever paper dicks, which had Michael blushing in embarrassment and Gabriel grinning with something akin to pride.  All in all, it as the tamest Castiel had seen the tree in years  although he was surprised that it didn't topple over under the weight of the adornments.

"Gabriel Collins, you must be the least productive member of society," Kali commented.  It was the first year that Castiel had seen her.  She was Michael's guest and, after being exposed to one of the more domestic members of the family, he was surprised that the rest of the siblings hadn't had her running for the hills after one night.  Her arms were folded over her chest and her nose was turned up, but there was something sparkling in her eyes that revealed that she wasn't actually annoyed with Gabriel.

"I own my own shop, thank you very much."

"Yeah, and I'm pretty sure that Madison does more of the actual management than you," Luci called from the other side of the living room.

Gabriel shrugged and Castiel glanced around for the law student who he assumed would be sporting red cheeks but neither she nor Adam were present.  Jo and Anna were absent as well, but that was to be expected.  They had only met a few months ago; Anna had flown back in to South Dakota from India to return to her apartment, which usually remained fairly vacant, for a few weeks until she decided which area of the world she was going to visit next.  She stopped off at a roadside bar and restraint that she had never visited but had the citizens of Sioux Falls singing its praises, and Jo was tended to the bar as she did every Thursday night.  He assumed the rest was history.

Anna was the first member of the family to find her soul mate.  It was bordering on odd that Michael and Luci had yet to meet their soul mate as they were both reaching thirty, but all in their own time, he supposed.  Michael, he could make excuses for -- raising six children and putting himself through  school at the same time then busying himself with a law firm immediately afterwards -- but Luci was a different  story.  Someone that would be compatible with Luci with her fun-loving spirit and pranks but volatile temper would be someone that Castiel would like to meet.

His own soul mate was a different tale entirely.  When he was fifteen he was positive that he could go his entire life without meeting his soul mate .  When he was seventeen he was positive that he could go his entire life without falling in love with anyone, soul mate or not.  His senior year of high school, he had followed more in the footsteps of Gabriel than anyone else in the family -- living up to his brother's legacy at parties and in between the sheets but never when it came to tricks.  As much as he enjoyed the eager hands of various strangers, he never came close to loving any of them and that never bothered him.  He wasn't looking to get tied down to one person for the rest of his life.

He had gone into college thinking that it would be nothing less than a continuation of senior year but it had been so much more.  He hadn't the slightest idea what he had gotten himself into when he opened the dorm room door to Dean Winchester and over the course of those first few months he realized how much he had been willing to miss out on in life and he wondered how he had ever thought that he would be better off alone.  

With Dean he felt all of the mindless, carnal passion that possessed him when it came to his one night stands, but, in addition to that, there was the urge to hold and handle gently once the deed was done.  He didn't know what falling in love felt like, and maybe he still didn't, but this had to be pretty damn close.  And he sure as hell didn't want anyone other than Dean Winchester with his green eyes, contagious smiles, love of hard liquor and Led Zeppelin, and laughter that warmed an ache in  Castiel's chest.  If he wasn't falling in love then he was pretty damn close.   



End file.
